Just returned from a wonderful 2-week trip, thanks so much to all who helped us plan. Thanks too to those who made suggestions for other cities and towns that we didn't go to this time, as I'm saving it all for future trips! This is Part I, for our 5 1/2 days/6 nights based in Laguardia; I'll either do Part II for our 6 nights/5 days in Madrid, immediately after or sometime in the next week.

Pre-trip, the Spanish health form was easy-peasy to fill out. Verifly app, on the other hand, which American Airlines kept trying to steer us to using to store all required info, was awful and I finally gave up on it. Turned out it wasn't a problem at all to just have things separately on our phones, without Verifly, so hopefully by sharing this I save someone else some unnecessary anxiety I had to experience about what might happen at the airport.

We arrived in Madrid on May 5th and immediately took took trains to Zaragoza and Logrono where we rented a car to go to Laguardia. DH hadn't driven a manual in years and there was a very steep ramp at the Logrono rental car parking lot to get out, so that and some other adventures with the car those first couple days, were a little harrowing. Other than that, it was smooth sailing with airports, flights, and trains.

We loved our time in Laguardia. We were extremely lucky with weather, no rain at all the entire time we were there, tho' it had been raining almost every day the prior week. The views were breathtaking, the people very friendly and laid back, and for us there was more than enough to keep busy, and that's even tho' we only wanted to tour one winery. All day on Friday, Sunday, and Wed. morning, we just stayed in town - wandered around; ate, rested; toured Casa Primicia (so fascinating to think of the history of a network of more than 200 connected cellars used during wartime); rested; wandered around; walked over to one of the lagoons for even more views of mountains and vineyards, then ate some more 🙂 (specific food mentions a couple paragraphs down).

Saturday, we drove around and made stops in Samaniego, Abalos, San Vincente de Sonsierra, and Briones. All were lovely (tho' Abalos was overcrowded with a very large group that had just arrived) but my favorite was San Vincente de Sonsierra, where we enjoyed a delicious lunch and very friendly service at Bar Acuario, then hung out a bit on the nearby plaza, followed by a walk up to the top of the castle. Upon return to Laguardia for dinner, we were reminded that one of our hosts at the lovely Casa Rural de Erletxe had told us that it was Dia del Gaitero, and so the bagpipers and players of the dulzaina from all over Spain, were both performing at certain locations at certain times (mas o menos) as well as parading through the streets. Even tho' one of our hosts said she hated this music, for us it was an unexpected and fun treat!

Monday we took a day trip to Vitoria-Gasteiz, a highlight of which was a tour of the Catedral de Santa Maria. Because no-one else had signed up for a tour that day at our time, we were given a private tour and in English (we'd been prepared for it to be in Spanish and to follow along with printed guides, as we both know some Spanish but aren't fluent). This was one of the best of such tours I've ever been on, it was fascinating to see and learn about all the decisions and work going into the renovations. Archeologists, architects, historians and other related professionals took 6 years just to plan what needed to happen! If you have a chance to do this tour, don't hesitate.

Before the tour, the streets had been pretty dead, it being a Monday early afternoon. But by afterwards the whole city was hopping, and we enjoyed a touristy cafe on Plaza Espana followed by a lovely visit to Florida Park. We accidentally took the mountain pass way back to Laguardia which had some of the most spectacular views ever but wasn't for the faint of heart.

Tuesday was a beautiful drive to monasteries Yuso y Suso,; we stopped for quite some time in the small town of Najera, which is full of interesting history and caves and huge rocks, and where we saw quite a few travelers on the French Way to Santiago. Anything I'd say about the monasteries could easily be found elsewhere, tho' I'll mention that while I expected to be more interested in Suso it was actually the ancient books of Yuso that really got my attention.

Things worth mentioning about food and meals: 1) much enjoyed tapas and pinxtos more than once at both Restaurante Biazteri (so friendly!) and the Irish Tavern which wasn't at all Irish, as well as at other places; 2) restaurant at the bodega Mayor de Migueloa; there we had one of those unexpectedly sweet and memorable moments that sometimes happen on vacations - they had no tables available except one in the back partially outside that they showed us, but it was definitely too cold for us there. We were about to leave, when two young men enjoying a glass of wine and tapas insisted that they'd be fine in the partially-outdoor area and we should take their table. As they were about to move they noticed one small high-top table in the warmer part of the restaurant that the waitress hadn't noticed and was available. We were going to take that but they insisted we should take their more comfortable spot (I think I now have to admit we're looking older than I might have previously admitted lol, we're actually fine at high tops but they were insistent!) and they'd take that table. So we accepted their kindness, and to thank them we had their wine glasses refilled, at which point they got our attention and we all toasted each others with big smiles. Our food was good too, made even better by the good feelings created by the kindness of strangers. After our meal, our waitress led us to go down to the underground wine cellar to explore a bit on our own. 3) Saturday night we dined at Sugar; delicious meal followed by 2 desserts (we usually share1 but here each got our own), turned out I actually preferred the goxua Basque dessert at Biazteri, but dh's Basque cake was absolutely delicious. 4) Just a general observation, to our taste they sure use a lot of salt, oil and butter everywhere (admittedly we weren't doing high end fine dining where it may differ), and vegetables need to be sought out! And we were surprised that in Spain, they don't bring olive oil out with bread as they do in Italy, given how much olive oil is to be found in Spain. We didn't learn to ask for it until we got to Madrid, when a local told us he was surprised to hear this and if he were ever not given it he'd surely ask for it!

I've of course left out tons of detail so if anyone planning a trip to this area wants to ask this non-expert anything, I'm happy to do my best to answer. Part II Madrid coming soon...

Thanks so much Laura, for taking the time to write this lovely report of your time in Laguardia. We find Laguardia and its surrounding countryside just beautiful at all times of the year. It sounds like it was a perfect place for you to rest and unwind, to visit the area monasteries, to explore the warren of fascinating underground cellars and just enjoy your surroundings in this unique medieval town. You were lucky with the weather and especially to be there for the Dνa del Gaitero. Looking forward to hearing about your time in Madrid.

Thanks, Maribel, you were such a key part of our planning and choosing Laguardia; I can't thank you enough. And you will be mentioned in particular in the Madrid section in relation to one of our favorite spots, so do stay tuned!

Thanks so much, go_laura, for your detailed description of your trip to the south of the Basque Country. Laguardia is a beautiful town and really worth the visit, and it΄s true, most foreign visitors expect to be served olive oil with bread...and we never do that here! Butter, though, is very rare in our cuisine.

Nice, go_laura. LaGuardia and area sound lovely. Also looking forward to Madrid.

I’m so glad you had such a wonderful trip! It sounds like a great area to visit. Thanks for a lovely write up.

Thanks, all. Took a little longer to get back for Part II, Madrid, but here we go...

Wed. was our travel day (by trains again) from Laguardia to Madrid, and we did get to wander a little in Logrono before returning our rental car, which was nice. We arrived at our place on Calle Moratin 33 at about 8pm or so; we loved this location, as it was a quiet street but a close walk to so much, and an easy subway ride when we were saving our feet or going a little farther. As first-timers to Madrid, we really appreciated that.

By this time in our trip I was dying for a good salad, tho', and couldn't care less if the place we went to was tourist-geared or not. We found Taverna del Sur and I was ecstatic to get a salad and even an entree with lots of vegetables in it, and by now I had a kitchen to bring leftovers back to, which I did. But it was probably the one place we went our whole 2 weeks with lots of English being spoken, so if you're not wanting that, then beware.

We'd wanted to get tickets for Museo Sorolla for Friday but found they weren't available, but were on Thursday, so we added that along with Plaza Olivade to our Thursday plans. So on Thursday we took our first look at the Mercado Anton Martin (which you'll see we went back to), then lunched on Plaza Santa Ana, followed by walking up to Plaza Mayor and Sol. From there we took the metro to Museo Sorolla, where we had a half hr before our tickets to have a cafe at Tim Horton's of all places 🙂but we were tired and it was right there! After that lovely museum visit (loved the light in his paintings and also that he had a number with women reading!), we walked over to Plaza Olivade - we got a little turned around so walked the wrong direction first, which made it a bit of a long and tiring walk. But I did love that plaza, and by then we were ready for some tapas, and there were tons of places right on the plaza. If I were to return to Madrid, I might consider staying in that area.

After that we took a cab to the Malasana neighborhood, where we'd bought tickets ahead for an hour's "experience" with Alberto at Casa Lopez Pascual. It was with one other couple in his small shop; he was a wonderful, warm storyteller; and, he gave us more than 2 hours instead of the 1, along with generous servings of jamon and wine. Very enjoyable. From there we walked to Gran Via, our first look at this majestic street, and took a metro back to our place - I can't remember if we stopped yet again for a bite, or were full from all the jamon! By the way, we had no problems with the metro, despite lots of scare stories we'd read online.

Friday morning was when we had tickets to the Prado, and there's really nothing I can say about that that's not easily found elsewhere, other than to say we got our tickets at 10AM and got in easily with very small line, AND everyone's recommendations to go right to anything you most want to see, first, before all the larger groups get there, was a very good recommendation. There were paintings I saw when I first arrived, with no-one or very few people near me, that had large crowds gathered continuously in front of them, by just an hour or so later. When we were done there, we walked over to Plaza Cibeles, and the 3 euros each we paid to go to the top of the Palacio de Cibeles, was very worth it, we really enjoyed the views and they had such good description displays to tell us what we were looking at from each direction. I was actually surprised that I hadn't seen this highlighted more often, in other people's trip reports or in online guides.

We then walked back toward our place, and had a really wonderful lunch at Cafeteria Neila, about 20 steps from our door. We loved this tiny place and would have gone back there if they hadn't been closed on Sunday and Monday (they're usually open Mondays but were closed for Festival de San Isidro). After that we took a siesta, followed by a much more leisurely visit to Mercado Anton Martin, this time buying several types of fruit and cheese and a couple tomatoes, to bring home. We stopped somewhere else (sorry, forget where), for good bread and greens, and enjoyed a light dinner back at our place because we knew we'd be getting more tapas when we went back out later to Cafe Central for a jazz performance at 10. The jazz was great, could've skipped the tapas there.

And now I have to go, so this trip report will have a part III, for our last few days in Madrid!