Last year, we spent just under three weeks exploring northern Spain – driving from the Central Pyrenees to Navarra and La Rioja, continuing to the many-spired cities of Burgos and Leon and heading north to siderias in Asturias and Cantabria’s chic coastline, before fishing up in Mundaka – a surf spot in the Basque Country.
Every region was really, really different. But everywhere we went, we encountered people who prioritise eating and drinking well, who love to socialise and spend time together engaging in something enjoyable – even if that’s simply the small pleasure of a short beer at breakfast.
And because we’re motivated by mealtimes more than anything else, we mainly ate and drank. We did some hiking; there was a great gallery in Santander. But we’re all about the food. Over the next few weeks, I’ll share our route and a few eating and drinking highlights, but before we navigate Navarra, some general observations…
Different places have different ways of eating – different times, different portions, sitting or standing. There are different drinks depending on where you are and different ways of pouring and preparing them, but gin always comes on a tray alongside an ice-filled glass and a bottle that’s poured until (it seems) you tell them to stop.
There’s tapas, pintxos and raciones. Bacalao, bocadillos and tortas. Wedges of blue goat’s cheese in Picos de Europa. Mornings are café con leche and churros in a cafe or fresh orange juice and chunks of spongey sobao pasiego in the market.
We eat crispy, fatty chicharrón, slim green guindilla peppers pickled in vinegar and tart, tangy gilda. Each mouth-puckering bite demands another sip of vino joven – a chilled, refreshing red made the same year La Rioja’s winemakers harvest the grapes.
We watch cider being poured from a height over a barrel in Oviedo. There’s vermouth – sometimes preparado, sometimes simply served with a few anchovy-stuffed olives swimming around. Citrus spirals are animated by the bubbles of a gintonic in balloon-shaped copa glass. Slightly sweet and with an aniseed spike, dinner in Navarra ends with patxaran liqueur made from blackthorn or sloe berries. While at lunch, set menus are served with half a bottle of wine each.
In Asturias, comfort comes in the form of fabada – a white bean stew featuring all kinds of piggy pieces – chorizo, bacon, ham hock, black pudding, pork belly. In the coastal town of Castro Urdiales, we stand at Meson Marinero’s wood-panelled bar and eat an incredibly tender octopus salad. Glass counters in Santander are filled with a mix of sweet crab and mayonnaise, slathered teeteringly high on pieces of bread.
Hot melted butter coats our chins in Logroño, where one small shop is renowned for garlic-fried mushrooms piled on juice-soaked slices of baguette. In Pamplona, evenings are for biting into crispy croquettes – revealing their scorching, creamy insides – and forkfuls of heart-stoppingly rich grilled foie gras on toast.
On our journey from Ainsa in the Central Pyrenees to Haro in La Rioja, we spent two nights in Pamplona at Hotel Ciudadela, which was compact and clean and very central.
If you’re entering Spain via France, I highly recommend you spend a couple of nights in Ainsa (we stayed at Alojamientos Ainsa Sanchez, which has a decent on-site restaurant) and go hiking in Parque Nacional de Ordesa. The tourist office in the hilltop old town area will sort you out with maps. We did the 18km round-trip to Cola de Caballo, which was stunning and easily done in a day if you drive from Ainsa to the car park at Torla.
We climbed peaks and gazed at waterfalls and shared bread and chorizo in an Alpine valley, where marmots tumbled in the lush green grass. Then the next day, we drove to Jaca for its star-shaped fortress and onto Monasterio de San Juan de la Pena to marvel at a monastery built into the side of a mountain.
Lunch was a €14 set menu in sleepy Sanguesa (Restaurante Ciudad de Sangüesa, Alle Santiago 4) featuring alubias pochas de sanguesa – local white beans poached in vegetable stock. It was perfect. The metal table in a shaded alleyway, the church at the end of the road, the whiteboard menu and lightly perspiring jug of wine. A sobering coffee and a slow walk back to the car in the lazy afternoon sun.
Later that day, we joined everyone in Pamplona (both locals and tourists) at Gaucho as it’s an obligatory stop on the pintxos trail and deservedly so. It’s hectic and delicious. Another guidebook staple (although one I’d say you can safely skip) is Cafe Iruña where Hemingway used to drink. (Is there anywhere he didn’t drink?!) You'll get a glimpse of the grand old establishment as you wander across Plaza del Castillo, which is perfect for people-watching.
We walked the 5km city walls, pausing at the smart Mercado del Ensanche for snacks and Txirrintxa for beer and jamón before stopping for considerably longer at the marble counter of Zanpa, where we sipped vermouth and watched scenes from a previous year’s running of the bulls on the television. We took a siesta under the trees in the pretty Parque de la Taconera. One or possibly both evenings ended with us at the serving hatch of Bar Cerveceria La Estafeta (Calle de la Estafeta 54) – for the gins, of course.
Having eaten pastries at a bakery that resembled an old chemist – all wooden shelves and glass cabinets – we left the city behind and stopped at the very old Puente la Reina bridge before arriving at Bodegas Ochoa far too early but nevertheless worked our way through a tasting alongside lots of cheese and the winery’s honey. Then – with 15 bottles in the boot and the midday sun upon us – we drove to Olite. It’s hazy but I recall black-topped turrets and strong espresso.
We hadn’t planned to go to Bardenas Reales – the team at Ochoa told us about it – and if we’d known we would spend an afternoon amid its lunar landscape, we might not have been so enthusiastic in our wine appreciation. It was hot and dusty and had an Area 51 kind of feel, complemented by the roar of military aircraft tearing across the endless horizon. It was eerie, awe-inspiring and totally unexpected.
We arrived in Haro a couple of hours later, feeling road-weary. But that’s for another day…
All images © Nic Crilly-Hargrave Photography – thanks ;-)