Three Weeks in Northern Spain
Oct 2nd, 2016, 03:44 PM
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Three Weeks in Northern Spain
This August my husband and I traveled around northern Spain for three weeks to celebrate our twentieth anniversary.
Backstory: This was our third trip to Spain and our second to northern Spain. We are in our early-mid 40s and love to travel to Europe to enjoy things that we just don't get to experience as much in rural New Hampshire, namely food, wine, and a walkable life.
Trip Overview: We love Spain and this trip was a nice addition to our Spanish travels. We flew from JFK to Madrid and rented a car for nearly three weeks. We looped from Madrid to the Picos de Europa, beach time in Cantabrias and Basque Country, a couple of nights in Rioja, and finished off the trip back in Madrid.
Hotels:
Burgos/Landa Hotel (2 nights): We'd been there before and thought it would be nice to decompress a little. We enjoyed the pool, the restaurant, and took the taxi into Burgos.
Parador de Cervera de Pisuerga (1 night): Probably one of the least appealing stops, but it did keep the traveling time short and allowed us to get to Potes early in the morning.
Parador de Fuente De (1 night): Fantastic views and perfect for a trip up the cable car. Highly recommended.
Pechon/Tinas de Pechon (1 night): Due to the rainy weather we did not rush to get to the seaside town and ended up getting to the hotel late in the day after traveling around Cantabria. Nice modern rooms, terrific A/C. It was a nice changed from the paradors.
Santander/Grand Hotel Sardinero (1 night): We'd been looking forward to some beach time and, boy, Santander really has the beaches! The hotel was perfectly located for beach time.
Bakio/Ureta Landa Rural Apartments (2 nights): We wanted enough time in the this area to walk up San Juan de Gaztelugatxe.
San Sebastian/Hotel de Londres (3 nights): We'd stayed there previously and it's really our dream vacation location. We loved everything: the hotel, its location, the beach, the food.
Hondarribia/Rio Biadosa Hotel (4 nights): After San Sebastian and the previous hotel, this hotel and its location were disappointing. The town was cute, but a combination of a rainy forecast and a small, sad room had us cancelling our reservation and taking a road trip up into France to Bordeaux.
Logrono/Calle Mayor (1 night): We loved the hotel and really liked Logrono. We ate nearly as well as in San Sebastian -- without the crowds.
LaGuardia/Hospederia De Los Parajes: Again, great hotel. We really enjoyed this small town. We should have done some wine tours, but after nearly three weeks we were really happy to find a restaurant for lunch and order a bottle of local wine.
Madrid/Westin Palace: We cashed in credit card points.
Trip Highlights:
* The Picos de Europa: We enjoyed the drive through the mountains, the ride up the cable car at Fuente De, and the views of Cantabria/Asturias. I am really glad we went.
* San Sebastian: For our 25th anniversary we are going to spend a week there and hope for great weather.
* San Juan de Gaztelugatxe was a definite bucket list item.
* Santander: We should have spent at least two nights here.
* Rioja: I enjoyed Rioja a lot. The views were spectacular and things were very non-commercial.
* I liked our quick trip into Santillana del Mar. A short morning trip was the perfect way to see the town. (Get the quesada at Casa Quevedo!)
Things I Didn't Love:
* Admittedly, we knew that we would be moving along a lot. But we kept the distances short and the luggage light. We should have made a few of the drives longer (skipping the first parador and probably Tinas de Pechon). I should note that generally speaking, we like driving vacations. We made sure that we picked hotels with onsite parking.
* The coastal road from Bakio was stunning and interesting at points, but not worth the hairpin turns. We abandoned the side road and moved to the highway.
* The traffic and lack of parking in the beach towns was (stupidly, oops!) unexpected. It was only really possible to find parking first thing in the morning. It reminded us of parking around the Amalfi Coast, cars parked in every nook and cranny possible along the road.
Travelers' Tip:
There is an Ikea about 15 minutes north of the airport in Madrid. We stopped in and picked up pillows (best decision ever!) and looked for beach chairs (sold out).
Would we do this trip again? Well, we are glad that we did the trip -- and are looking forward to future trips to San Sebastian and perhaps Rioja -- but with so many other places to explore in Spain and beyond, we will probably travel further afield to Galicia next time.
I hope this is helpful to other travelers planning their trips to northern Spain!
Backstory: This was our third trip to Spain and our second to northern Spain. We are in our early-mid 40s and love to travel to Europe to enjoy things that we just don't get to experience as much in rural New Hampshire, namely food, wine, and a walkable life.
Trip Overview: We love Spain and this trip was a nice addition to our Spanish travels. We flew from JFK to Madrid and rented a car for nearly three weeks. We looped from Madrid to the Picos de Europa, beach time in Cantabrias and Basque Country, a couple of nights in Rioja, and finished off the trip back in Madrid.
Hotels:
Burgos/Landa Hotel (2 nights): We'd been there before and thought it would be nice to decompress a little. We enjoyed the pool, the restaurant, and took the taxi into Burgos.
Parador de Cervera de Pisuerga (1 night): Probably one of the least appealing stops, but it did keep the traveling time short and allowed us to get to Potes early in the morning.
Parador de Fuente De (1 night): Fantastic views and perfect for a trip up the cable car. Highly recommended.
Pechon/Tinas de Pechon (1 night): Due to the rainy weather we did not rush to get to the seaside town and ended up getting to the hotel late in the day after traveling around Cantabria. Nice modern rooms, terrific A/C. It was a nice changed from the paradors.
Santander/Grand Hotel Sardinero (1 night): We'd been looking forward to some beach time and, boy, Santander really has the beaches! The hotel was perfectly located for beach time.
Bakio/Ureta Landa Rural Apartments (2 nights): We wanted enough time in the this area to walk up San Juan de Gaztelugatxe.
San Sebastian/Hotel de Londres (3 nights): We'd stayed there previously and it's really our dream vacation location. We loved everything: the hotel, its location, the beach, the food.
Hondarribia/Rio Biadosa Hotel (4 nights): After San Sebastian and the previous hotel, this hotel and its location were disappointing. The town was cute, but a combination of a rainy forecast and a small, sad room had us cancelling our reservation and taking a road trip up into France to Bordeaux.
Logrono/Calle Mayor (1 night): We loved the hotel and really liked Logrono. We ate nearly as well as in San Sebastian -- without the crowds.
LaGuardia/Hospederia De Los Parajes: Again, great hotel. We really enjoyed this small town. We should have done some wine tours, but after nearly three weeks we were really happy to find a restaurant for lunch and order a bottle of local wine.
Madrid/Westin Palace: We cashed in credit card points.
Trip Highlights:
* The Picos de Europa: We enjoyed the drive through the mountains, the ride up the cable car at Fuente De, and the views of Cantabria/Asturias. I am really glad we went.
* San Sebastian: For our 25th anniversary we are going to spend a week there and hope for great weather.
* San Juan de Gaztelugatxe was a definite bucket list item.
* Santander: We should have spent at least two nights here.
* Rioja: I enjoyed Rioja a lot. The views were spectacular and things were very non-commercial.
* I liked our quick trip into Santillana del Mar. A short morning trip was the perfect way to see the town. (Get the quesada at Casa Quevedo!)
Things I Didn't Love:
* Admittedly, we knew that we would be moving along a lot. But we kept the distances short and the luggage light. We should have made a few of the drives longer (skipping the first parador and probably Tinas de Pechon). I should note that generally speaking, we like driving vacations. We made sure that we picked hotels with onsite parking.
* The coastal road from Bakio was stunning and interesting at points, but not worth the hairpin turns. We abandoned the side road and moved to the highway.
* The traffic and lack of parking in the beach towns was (stupidly, oops!) unexpected. It was only really possible to find parking first thing in the morning. It reminded us of parking around the Amalfi Coast, cars parked in every nook and cranny possible along the road.
Travelers' Tip:
There is an Ikea about 15 minutes north of the airport in Madrid. We stopped in and picked up pillows (best decision ever!) and looked for beach chairs (sold out).
Would we do this trip again? Well, we are glad that we did the trip -- and are looking forward to future trips to San Sebastian and perhaps Rioja -- but with so many other places to explore in Spain and beyond, we will probably travel further afield to Galicia next time.
I hope this is helpful to other travelers planning their trips to northern Spain!
Oct 2nd, 2016, 04:12 PM
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Perfect timing (for me!) that you are posting this as I am in the midst of planning a very similar trip for next July. What you have posted so far is great info but I hope you are going to elaborate more. Also, do you have photos posted anywhere.
Can I ask which carrier you used for your flights? And why did you choose to go all the way to NYC instead of Boston. I'm in western Mass and have flown out of both but usually find the hassle of JFK not worth it so am curious why you did (especially since it's even further for you).
I see you didn't go to Santiago de Compostela or Leon. Did you do those on a previous trip.
My problem is I want to do most of what you did, plus those other two and have even less time than you had (about 16 or 17 nights).
Thanks for posting.
Can I ask which carrier you used for your flights? And why did you choose to go all the way to NYC instead of Boston. I'm in western Mass and have flown out of both but usually find the hassle of JFK not worth it so am curious why you did (especially since it's even further for you).
I see you didn't go to Santiago de Compostela or Leon. Did you do those on a previous trip.
My problem is I want to do most of what you did, plus those other two and have even less time than you had (about 16 or 17 nights).
Thanks for posting.
Oct 2nd, 2016, 04:29 PM
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Thank you so much for your report. I love Northern Spain and I'm familiar with several of the places you went to, always enjoy reading about trips in that area. Agree with you about Santander, I've been lucky to go there 3 times, spending between 2-4 nights each time (one time I stayed at your hotel). I feel its overshadowed by San Sebastian. Although the food scene of SS cant compete with Santander, I feel the bay and the beaches are equally , if not more, beautiful in Santander.
I need to go to the Rioja region, which I dont know, thanks for hotel tips there!
I need to go to the Rioja region, which I dont know, thanks for hotel tips there!
Oct 3rd, 2016, 03:33 AM
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Thanks for your replies!
@ Isabel: I understand your desire to cram in more! We originally planned to travel to Galicia during this trip. Santiago and A Coruna were going to be a big part of the trip. However, I think we were very smart to save Galicia for a later date. It would have been too much, as we wanted to spend more time chilling out at the beach.
We cashed in our points and few Delta (Business, hehe!). I am a nervous flyer and would rather (crazily, I know) drive down to JFK rather than take a quick flight out of Logan or NH. I do not like smaller planes.
I hope to get more photos online to share soon.
@ Cruiseluv: I was pleasantly surprised by Santander. We walked from the hotel to the downtown and could not believe the number of beautiful beaches! I would like to spend more time there. We ate well in Santander (at a bar with delicious tapas/pinchos), but we probably could have eaten even better if we'd done more restaurant research (versus bar research) and waited until later in the evening. (We were starving after the swim and long walk.)
We were really happy with the quick overnights in Rioja. Without the winery tours, that really was all we needed. But if we'd added more than one winery, it would have been way too short. Both hotels in Rioja were very unique and nice.
I hope to add a link to photos soon.
@ Isabel: I understand your desire to cram in more! We originally planned to travel to Galicia during this trip. Santiago and A Coruna were going to be a big part of the trip. However, I think we were very smart to save Galicia for a later date. It would have been too much, as we wanted to spend more time chilling out at the beach.
We cashed in our points and few Delta (Business, hehe!). I am a nervous flyer and would rather (crazily, I know) drive down to JFK rather than take a quick flight out of Logan or NH. I do not like smaller planes.
I hope to get more photos online to share soon.
@ Cruiseluv: I was pleasantly surprised by Santander. We walked from the hotel to the downtown and could not believe the number of beautiful beaches! I would like to spend more time there. We ate well in Santander (at a bar with delicious tapas/pinchos), but we probably could have eaten even better if we'd done more restaurant research (versus bar research) and waited until later in the evening. (We were starving after the swim and long walk.)
We were really happy with the quick overnights in Rioja. Without the winery tours, that really was all we needed. But if we'd added more than one winery, it would have been way too short. Both hotels in Rioja were very unique and nice.
I hope to add a link to photos soon.
