La Rioja

The city of Todos los Santos de la Nueva Rioja—always shortened to just La Rioja—was founded in 1591 by Juan Ramírez de Velasco, a Spanish conqueror of noble lineage who named the city after his birthplace in Spain. Three hundred years later, there were only 8,000 inhabitants, and the city was relatively untouched by the big immigrations of the early 20th century. It started to grow in the 1970s with increased industrialization, and now has 150,000 citizens. The super-relaxed nature of those inhabitants suggests that one day it's going to be a great place for a holiday, but it still lacks a clincher. Unless you can adjust to taking a siesta, the afternoons are hot and boring, and in the evening the streets are flooded with the sound of broken exhaust pipes as the locals circle the plazas on mopeds. So make good use of the mornings and late afternoons when the museums are open. If you want to get out and about, hire a rental car here: the rest of the province is hard to reach by public transport, and there's nowhere else in the province to rent cars.