Day 5 and 6: Western Spain and Portugal

Intro - The Tour
Days 1 & 2 - Getting to Bordeaux
Day 3 - St. Emilion
Day 4 - Rioja Wine Region

Day 5 started with a mediocre Spanish hotel breakfast (no chocolate croissants - grr) and some cold, rainy weather. I usually tough through the cold because it typically doesn't last long. You know how road trips go - lots of weather changes. However, this particular day it was either just extra cold or I was being a weenie, because I made us pull over only 45 minutes into the drive so that I could have some hot tea. But it definitely helped to warm me up!

About an hour later, the skies cleared, but man the drive was kinda boring! It felt like we were driving through Spanish Kansas - lots of flat fields and only a few tiny, run-down towns.

We stopped in one of the towns for lunch, and it felt like something out of an old western, but in Spain. Do those even exist? We didn't fit in at all with our motorcycle! But they served up a good fish sandwich and paella.

Old Spanish Western town :)

As we continued on, we hit some crazy winds! Luckily, as we got into more hills, the winds died down. The hills grew more dramatic and beautiful as we went along. In those hills, there were tons of small towns that seemed completely deserted. They were really cool looking because they were all old, rustic stone buildings. It was really interesting and made us wonder what had happened to have people settle towns like those and then leave.

We saw a few of these huge Spanish bulls. It's hard to tell in this picture, but this metal bull is probably 30 feet tall

We stopped for coffee at a hostel in what seemed to be the middle of nowhere, and the lady working the counter thought Brian was Spanish. We concluded it was because of his unshaven face :)

Our B&B for the night was really cool! We had to take several tiny roads to get to it, and the structure was extremely old, but the inside was refurbished really well!

Check out our room!

We spent the evening sitting on our porch, listening to a stream nearby, drinking wine, listening to jazz, and just relaxing. It was so nice to unwind and reflect on our great day of driving.


Dinner that night was prepared and served by the B&B owner, and it was really tasty! Great red wine (of course), croquettes, pork, barbecue rice, and flan with celery for dessert! I wouldn't have thought to pair celery and flan, but it was really good.


The next morning, the B&B owner was back in the kitchen and served us fresh squeezed orange juice, eggs, and crepes.

Time to head out

The weather that day was SO much better! Lots of sun and warm temperatures. It didn't take us long to hit our first good roads for the day. We spent a couple of hours driving through a national park on the border of Spain and Portugal, and it was gorgeous!


We were the only ones on the road (literally, we saw one other car), and the road was surrounded by lush vegetation and cool rock formations. For a little while, I thought maybe we weren't supposed to be on that road? What if it dead-ended? But we cruised right along without problems and just enjoyed the view! And the smells - they were so fresh and sweet. We drove by tons of really cool picnic areas with solid stone picnic tables - I wish I had packed a lunch!

The road we followed

We saw lots of these!

There were tons of orange trees (right side of the picture)

After the national park, it wasn't too much further to Porto, and I'll save Porto for another post!

Day 4: Traveling from French to Spanish Wine Country

Intro
Days 1 & 2
Day 3

Day 4 started out great with more of those yummy, homemade chocolate croissants at our B&B in Bordeaux. Breakfast of champions!

The first stretch of our drive was along a small road that went through cute French towns and lots of wooded areas. You can see the road in the picture below along with a random church we saw.



Then it led to a huge logging area. I never knew that France had such a huge pine industry! There were hundreds of piles of logs like this one below. Pretty interesting to see.


After the logging fields, we started to see more hills that were leading into the Pyrenees mountains.

Random...

As we drove closer to the mountains, the clouds definitely started to look more gloomy.

I just loved seeing all of these little French towns

Lunch was at a little restaurant in the French version of Target, and then we really started our journey through the mountains. It was so green and lush, and the road was really fun (lots of twists and turns). All of the mountain towns looked like something out of a movie - stone buildings with colorful shutters, flowers, and cool streetlamps. We even saw one herd of sheep that had the CUTEST herd dog. He looked so wise and in charge :)

It started to rain on us just as we were getting ready to enter a long tunnel. Perfect timing! Brian and I joked, wouldn't it be awesome if it was sunny at the other end of this tunnel? Crazy, but this is honestly how it looked on the other side!

Sun!

We had made it to Spain, and the weather was definitely welcoming! As we drove, we saw a few towns that were perched on hills like this one.


This lake was so green and huge! We drove along it for quite a while.

After lots of fun roads and changes in scenery, we arrived at our stop for the night - Logroño. Our hotel was really nice and right in the middle of old town. To park the bike overnight, the hotel had a parking garage that you entered through a vehicle elevator. I had never seen that before!

Logroño was a cute town in the Rioja region of Spain, which is famous for its wine. So we walked around and found some outdoor seating where we could drink wine and people watch until the restaurants opened. Spaniards don't eat dinner until around 10pm, so the restaurants don't open till 8:30 or 9pm. That first night we were pretty hungry around 7, but luckily Spanish bars serve snacks with their drinks :)




Once the restaurants started to open, we walked around the restaurant district, scoping out our options. We knew we wanted tapas, but each restaurant looked so different! When it started to rain, that helped us make a quick decision on where to eat! Spanish tapas is really different from what I've experienced in the States. Each tapas restaurant is pretty narrow and has different types of food displayed in glass, like a pastry shop. Then you point out what you want and you eat it there at the little bar. Stuffed red peppers, dried meats, and fried fish were among our favorites of the tapas selection. And of course it was all enjoyed with delicious, cheap Rioja wine! Brian was so proud - he found a 2 euro bottle of wine that was so good!



It was a great first day in Spain!

Day 3: Saint Emilion, France

Intro
Days 1 & 2

The Bordeaux region was one stop on this road trip where Brian and I enjoyed a full day of exploring, and I'm so glad we did! I could spend several days cruisin' around that area. I haven't ever been to Napa, but I assume it's the same kind of fun. We were very excited about the B&B we were staying in, and we wanted to drive around some of the chateaus and taste some local wines.

We woke up kind of early that morning because Jean Josef and Veronica had said they would meet us for breakfast at 8:00 or 8:30. They ended up not coming to breakfast until 9:30 or so, which I found really funny! We woke up earlier than the old folk :) It was nice, though, because we got our first pick of the pastries at breakfast. This turned out to be a major win because there were only THREE chocolate filled croissants, which ended up being one of the food highlights of the trip for me. So Brian and I each had our own chocolate croissant! Don't judge. They were ridiculous yum.

The breakfast table was HUGE. It was made from the bottom of an old wine barrel. Awesome.

As we drank our perfectly made French coffee, we read Allison's husbands travel journal that he made about his Enduro India motorcycle trip. He was a great writer, so it was a really entertaining and interesting read. When we were about done reading, Veronica and Jean Josef joined us for breakfast, but it was MUCH more difficult to communicate without translator Ben!

After we said our good-byes to the cute old French couple, Brian and I got ready for our day of exploring French wine country! Allison recommended we go to St. Emilion for the day. It was the perfect distance and sounded just like what we were looking for, so we geared up and were off!

On our way out the door, I was surprised to meet Allison's great dane.
He was the biggest dog I've ever seen. Don't I look like a midget in this picture??

The drive to St. Emilion was perfect (minus the clouds...but at least it didn't rain!). I know the Bordeaux region is huge in the wine business, but I never could have imagined THAT many vineyards! They went on forever.

Coming up on St. Emilion, the little old city seemed fake it was so beautiful.

Bri found a great place to park the bike (he seriously has this way of finding the best little nooks and hideouts for the motorcycle), and we got out of our motorcycle gear and started our day of exploring. St. Emilion is located on top of a hill with vineyards going as far as you can see all around it, so it's quite a picturesque town! I loved all of Brian's photos, so please forgive me for not being able to narrow them down :)


At the very beginning of our walk, we smelled the sweetest smell of freshly baked macaroons. Holy moly. We hadn't had lunch yet, though, so we had to skip over the bakery (for now) to find more substantial food.

We had parked at the top of the hill, so we wandered around up there for a bit and found lots of views like this.

And we slowly made our way down to the plaza you can see below us in this picture for lunch with a great view.


This lunch was, however, voted our biggest rip off of the trip. The food was fine but just cost way more than it should have. But that didn't stop me from enjoying this crepe! And the sun even came out a little during our lunch!

Man, the streets of this little town were too adorable.

And stunning.

We love seeing architecture that is built into the sides of hills. The numerous tiers are pretty and make for a great after-lunch workout.

And I loved the multi-colored roofs!

Inside St. Emilion's church, which had windows that overlooked vineyards

We went into this chateau to see where the wine-making action happened

The caves, with wine aging in barrels. These caves were so cold! Nature's refrigerator.

A guy working at this chateau gave us a tour of the place and had all kinds of great information about wine. And Brian asked some really great questions, too, like about the region (both reds and whites are made in Bordeaux, which I never see whites from there), what percentage of grapes are used (depends on the wine quality), and what happens to the barrels after one batch of wine is made (they're reused a few times!). We felt kind of bad leaving without buying anything, but the cheapest bottle they had was more than $20, and Allison had told us not to spend much on wine in St. Emilion because you could get it at the grocery store for a fraction of the cost.

Time for more walking!

I purposefully led us back to the macaroon store so that we could get some for later. I've never had such light, fluffy, tasty macaroons!






A dark cloud appeared to be rolling in, so we decided to head back toward the B&B. Despite the chance of rain, we wanted to stop at one of the smaller chateaus off the side of the road on the way home, so we followed signs to one that was tucked nicely into some secluded hills. At first it appeared to be closed and deserted - darn! But as we were doing a U-turn, we saw an old man in a bright blue farming onesie appear in the field. Brian made a hand motion like he was drinking wine, the old guy made the money hand gesture (rubbing his thumb across the tips of his fingers), we all nodded, and we were waved over to a huge barn. It was really comical.

The barn was so basic. It had cartons of wine on the floor, and the prices were listed on a little piece of paper on a post (CHEAP prices - 2 euro for a bottle). While we were "shopping", this little old lady came into the barn, too. We couldn't figure out if she was his wife or if she was married to his son? But she was sooo animated and just chatted our heads off, mostly in French. She had on this funny little hat, and she was really short. We couldn't understand what she was saying most of the time, but it was really entertaining! We ended up buying two bottles, and then the old couple waved us toward another barn.


We walked into the vat room, where all of their wine is made and bottled. They were so proud of their work and kept emphasizing in broken English that making wine isn't an easy lifestyle. But they were very excited to give us a taste from the vat. Since Bri was driving, he only had a small sip, but I enjoyed a nice glass of fresh-from-the-vat-French-country-wine!


They were also really excited about their new label machine that they had purchased. It was pretty cool! And very shiny.


We were excited to get back to the B&B and test our loot, so we said our goodbyes and hit the road! Unfortunately the rain cloud had been heading our way that entire time, so we rode through a little rain on our way home.


When we got back to the house, we sat by the big window and listened to the rain and the fire in the fireplace while we played chess and checkers with some great red wine. I had never played chess before, so Brian was a great teacher. It was a very relaxing evening!


Marmaduke (I can't remember the dog's real name) decided to join us inside. This gives you a better picture of how huge this dog is. He stands taller next to B than I do!


For dinner, we had salmon, salad, cheese and what looked and tasted like banana flambe for dessert. Yum! What a great way to wrap up our day in Bordeaux!