Estoy en La Rioja

I arrived in the region of Spain called La Rioja yesterday afternoon. I´m in the city of Logroño visiting my favorite Spaniards, Paula and Javi, in their home town. We just got back from an authentic tapas evening where you hop from tapas bar to tapas bar eating and drinking wine. Fantastico!

This afternoon, Paula took me to her family home in La Union, 10 minutes drive from Logroño in the country. We had a beautiful lunch prepared by her mother and father. We later climed to El Clavijo, the ruins of a medieval castle nearby.

Over the next few days, I will travel to nearby Bilbao to the famous Guggenheim edifice and later to Pamplona to stalk some bulls. On Saturday I´m off to Madrid. Next Tuesday´s destination: Budapest, Hungary.

What can I say? I am lucky to have the opportunity to travel to all these magnificent places. I´m not rich and I don´t consider myself stuffy or pretentious. It´s tough convincing people of this but, hey, when you love something as much as I love travelling, you find a way to do it no matter how tight your budget is. You fly Ryanair instead of British Airways. You forgo 1st class for steerage. You give up the Ritz for a 12 person, mixed hostel dorm. This is what I do and I love it. Unfortunately this is probably the last big trip I will make for a long time so I´m making the most of it.