Logrono

Introduction

Logroño is the capital of La Rioja, set in the north of the Iberian Peninsula mainly on the right bank of the Ebro River. Historically a place of passage, it sits on the Camino de Santiago, and its position made it a contested prize between the medieval Iberian kingdoms of Castile, Navarre and Aragon.

Before you go

Logroño sits in the Ebro valley, where the Ebro Way of the Camino de Santiago meets the French Way. The city's history reaches back to Roman Vareia, now a neighbourhood of the city, and to the Iron Age site on top of Monte Cantabria. In the Middle Ages it grew as a crossroads and a strategic point between the kingdoms of Aragon, Castile and Navarra. Later it withstood a siege by French troops in 1521, and a tribunal of the Spanish Inquisition was established here in 1570. Today Logroño is the capital of the autonomous community of La Rioja.

The climate is humid continental: summers are hot and winters cold, with rain spread across the year, so pack for both heat and chill depending on when you travel. A good first stop is the centrally located Tourist Office of La Rioja on Calle Portales, which offers free maps and information on the city and the region; ask there about current exhibitions and guided tours. Logroño is quite a safe city, but as anywhere while travelling, keep an eye on your belongings.

Getting there

Logroño sits on Spain's northern rail and road networks, and most travellers arrive by train or bus. The railway station on Avenida Colón is served by Renfe, with long-distance trains linking the city to Barcelona, Bilbao, Madrid, Salamanca, Santiago de Compostela, Valladolid and Zaragoza. The bus station on Avenida de España is equally well connected: ALSA runs services to Barcelona and Madrid (stopping at Madrid–Barajas Airport and the Avenida de América terminal) as well as to Burgos, Gijón, León, Santander, Santiago de Compostela, Valladolid and Vitoria-Gasteiz; Autobuses Jiménez connects Burgos and Zaragoza and covers regional routes across La Rioja; Bilman Bus heads to Valencia, Alicante and Murcia; La Estellesa serves Pamplona and San Sebastián; La Unión Alavesa runs to Bilbao; and PLM Autocares offers a cheaper option to Madrid.

By car, the AP-68 motorway links Zaragoza with Bilbao, the A-12 connects Pamplona and Burgos, the N-120 runs towards Vigo and the N-232 follows the Ebro to the coast. Note that blue and green parking spaces are paid Monday to Saturday, while white spaces are free at all times; car rental is available at both the airport and the train station. The city's own airport at Agoncillo, near the village of Recajo, has no public transport link, so you'll need a car or taxi to reach it, and its scheduled service is limited to a daily Iberia flight from Madrid. If you're walking the Way of Saint James, the pilgrim route passes through the city on foot.

Getting around

Logroño is a small, flat city, and much of it rewards walking: the old town, the tapas streets and the main plazas sit within easy strolling distance of one another, and the Camino de Santiago passes through the centre. For longer hops, the city bus network crosses Logroño on eleven lines, running from morning until around nightfall with frequencies of roughly 10 to 15 minutes. Buy your ordinary ticket directly from the driver; it allows unlimited transfers for half an hour, and all buses have free Wi-Fi. On Fridays and Saturdays, night buses run on three separate routes, which is handy if you are out late in the tapas districts.

Cycling is a good option thanks to the flat terrain and an extensive network of bike lanes. The public rent-a-bike service is called biciLOG, and visitors can use it for free after obtaining a pass at the tourist office, so sort that out early in your trip. Taxis are quite expensive for a city of this size, but they are the practical choice for reaching the airport, since there is no public transport link to it. Official taxis are white with a red stripe on the front door, and available ones show a green light on top; you can pick one up at stands around the city or call one of the local taxi numbers.

Where to stay

Logroño has plenty of modern hotels, both in the city centre and on the outskirts. For cheaper accommodation, look for guesthouses known as hostal or pensión. The city's first hostel opened in 2012, and there is also a camping area. As a stop on the Camino de Santiago, Logroño has several pilgrim hostels known as albergue de peregrinos.

• Camping La Playa, on Avda. de la Playa, offers bungalows of varying sizes, private rooms and pitches for camping for two.
• Hostel Entresueños, on C/Portales, opened in July 2012 and offers beds.

Mid-range options include the four-star Hotel Carlton Rioja and Hotel Husa Gran Vía on Avda. Gran Vía Rey Juan Carlos I, and the four-star NH Logroño Herencia Rioja on C/Marqués de Murrieta. Three-star choices include Hotel Condes de Haro on C/Saturnino Ulargui, Hotel Murrieta on C/Marqués de Murrieta and Hotel Portales on C/Portales.

At the upper end, the AC Hotel La Rioja sits on C/Madre de Dios, and Hotel Calle Mayor on C/Marqués de San Nicolás is a boutique hotel housed in a palace built during the 16th century. Other options include Hotel FG Logroño on Avda. de Viana, the four-star Hotel Los Bracos on C/Breton de los Herreros and Hotel Marqués de Vallejo on C/Marqués de Vallejo.

Food & drink

Logroño's eating culture is built around the pintxo, the northern Spanish take on tapas, and the heart of it is Calle Laurel. Together with Travesía del Laurel, Calle San Agustín and Calle Albornoz, it packs more than 50 bars into a stretch of around a hundred metres, each with its own speciality and each best accompanied by a glass of Rioja. The local circuit is nicknamed the Trail of the Elephants, on the grounds that you'd end up walking on four legs if you tried every bar. Newer openings tend to serve more than one dish. For a calmer alternative, Calle San Juan, a few hundred metres away, has another 30-odd bars that are usually less crowded and specialise in different things. Two names worth knowing on the Laurel circuit: Bar Soriano, in the Travesía del Laurel, serves just one kind of pintxo — mushrooms with garlic butter and prawns skewered to toasted bread — alongside beer and wine, while Bar Jubera on Calle Laurel is known for its patatas bravas.

Pintxos add up if your appetite runs away with you, so budget-conscious eaters can order raciones, larger portions usually served in clay pots, or the bigger sandwiches known as bocadillos or bocatas. Doner kebab stands scattered around town sell beef and chicken with salad in flatbread, and in autumn and winter churrería stalls appear with fried-dough churros, along with smaller kiosks selling roasted chestnuts. On working days most restaurants offer a lunchtime daily menu of three courses with bread, wine and water — Boragos on Plaza del Mercado does modern cooking with a cod speciality, LaMaite on Calle Sagasta serves traditional food with a twist, and Burgerheim on Calle Víctor Pradera draws a crowd for its burgers, so arrive early. At the top end, Kiro Sushi on Calle María Teresa Gil de Gárate seats a maximum of ten people twice a day for traditional Japanese sushi and requires booking ahead, while Tondeluna on Calle Muro de la Mata, from chef Francis Paniego, offers high-quality cooking with local products at affordable prices. For drinking, beer comes as a caña (about 25 cl of draught), a smaller corto de cerveza, or a pinta; on Thursdays many bars sell pints at the price of a caña, and some pour local craft beers such as Ceriux, Mateo & Bernabé and Palax. Plaza del Parlamento and Plaza San Agustín are favourite spots for beer with terraces. Coffee is an excuse to sit and chat — the pedestrian Bretón de los Herreros has some of the nicest cafeterias with outdoor terraces, busy after work. In summer ask for a café con hielos, or try té americano, black tea boiled in milk with orange and cinnamon; Café La Luna spikes it with hazelnut liqueur or ron miel, and Café Moderno, founded in 1916, is both bar and restaurant. Wine is classified as joven, crianza, reserva or gran reserva by ageing, and by colour as tinto, blanco, clarete or rosado. At La Gota de Vino on Calle San Agustín, take the manager Antonio's advice on the region's trending wines, and at La Tavina on Calle Laurel ask about the next wine and food pairing event.

What to see and do

Logroño's old centre is dense with churches, several of them free to enter. The Co-cathedral of Santa María de la Redonda was built in the 15th century and expanded over the following two, and behind the main altar hangs a painting attributed to Michelangelo. The Church of San Bartolomé is the oldest in the city, dating to the 12th century, with a magnificent arched cover holding Romanesque sculptures. Santa María de Palacio, built between the 12th and 13th centuries, is recognisable by its Gothic octagonal spire, and Santiago el Real stands on the site of the city's oldest church, though the present building is 16th-century. For the city's defences, El Cubo del Revellín is the best-preserved stretch of the wall and holds an exhibition inside. The Fountain of Distinguished Riojans on the Gran Vía honours eight figures from the region's history, from the Roman rhetorician Quintilian to the chemist Fausto Elhuyar.

Across the Ebro, the House of Sciences occupies a former slaughterhouse and runs changing scientific exhibitions, with tools in the garden for your own experiments. The Museum of La Rioja, in an 18th-century Baroque palace, displays paintings, sculptures and furniture, while the Würth La Rioja Museum, out in the El Sequero industrial estate and reachable by car or the M7 metropolitan bus, is devoted to contemporary art. Wine is the other draw: in the old city you can visit the vaulted underground cellars known as calados, or tour a winery around the city, among them Bodegas Franco-Españolas, founded in 1890 by a French-Spanish partnership when French growers came to Rioja after phylloxera devastated their vineyards, and Bodegas Campo Viejo, opened in 2001 and buried into the landscape, with a barrel room holding tens of thousands of oak barrels. For entertainment, the Riojaforum hosts conferences and concerts, and the 19th-century Theatre of Bretón de los Herreros stages plays, music, choreography and film. Festivals mark the calendar: the Actual Festival of music, film and art in the first week of the year; the Fiestas de San Bernabé in June, when the Cofradía del Pez serves fish, bread and wine free in memory of the 1521 siege and locals wear period dress; and the Fiestas de San Mateo around 21 September, the Wine and Harvest Festival, with a morning bull run, tastings, bullfighting and Basque pelota, then fireworks and concerts at night.

When to go

Logroño has a humid continental climate, so the seasons shape your visit in distinct ways. Summers are hot, with real heat during daytime outings, so plan sightseeing and time in the old town and along the Ebro with the warmth in mind. Rain can still fall at any point, since precipitation is spread through the year rather than concentrated in one season, so it pays to be ready for wet weather whatever the month.

Winters are cold, so pack for genuinely chilly days around town. As in the rest of the year, wet weather remains possible rather than being confined to another season, so a waterproof layer is worth carrying even on crisp winter days. Because rain is distributed fairly evenly across the calendar, no single season is reliably dry, and you should expect the chance of showers whenever you go.

Three days in Logrono

Day one: Start in Logroño's old centre, where the Camino de Santiago passes through La Rioja on the Iberian Peninsula. The city's history runs from Roman Vareia and Iron Age Monte Cantabria to the Middle Ages, when it sat between Castile and Navarre and later Aragon, and the French Way and Ebro Way both cross the Ebro River here. Begin at the Tourist Office, then walk Calle Portales, the street at the heart of the old town, and take in the Ebro riverside.

Day two: Use the city as a base for the wider region of La Rioja, following the Camino and the Ebro through the landscape that shaped Logroño's past, including its later entanglement with the Spanish Inquisition. Return to the city in the evening and stay with the old quarter around Calle Portales rather than striking out to Avenida Colón.

Day three: Spend your last day on the practical side of the city. Avenida Colón and Avenida de España are the main arteries, and Renfe and ALSA links connect Logroño with Barcelona, Bilbao, Madrid, Salamanca, Compostela, Valladolid and Zaragoza, so plan your onward journey from there. Today Logroño rewards a slow final wander along the Ebro before you leave.