City Review: Logroño, Spain

As we neared the end of our road trip, the last real stop (aside from spending one afternoon/night in Zaragoza) was the city of Logroño in Spain. When I told Spanish people we were visiting Logroño, they all said, “Why??”

Back when I was preparing to apply for the language auxiliares de conversacion/NALCAP program, I knew I wanted to end up in Madrid. But you have to select a few options. So after selecting Madrid as my first choice, I put Logroño as number two… despite never having visited before. That’s because I had read a blog by a former auxiliar who said she had an amazing time during her year in Logroño. Later, when I lived in Madrid, a friend of mine ended up visiting Logroño for a weekend, and she said it was Spanish wine country. Who wouldn’t love that?

All these years later, my curiosity got the better of me when I saw how close we’d be to Logroño during our road trip. I wondered what my life would have been like if I’d spent my years in Spain there, instead of Madrid. So I knew we had to check it out.

Here’s what it was like to visit.

About Logroño

Logroño is the capital of La Rioja, one of Spain’s 17 autonomous communities that are similar to U.S. states. La Rioja is the smallest community in mainland Spain. And it’s famous for wine! If you are ever talking about Spanish wines, and a wine is classified as a “Rioja,” you know it came from the La Rioja region (or the nearby Navarre region).

Logroño is La Rioja’s largest and most important city, but it’s not even near the top 10 for the whole country when it comes to population. With only about 150,000 residents, Logroño isn’t a major city by any stretch of the imagination.

As I noted as we approached Logroño for the first time during our road trip, as you’re driving along the countryside, it’s hard to imagine a city is going to appear at any point. Our GPS said we were 10 minutes from our hotel, but there was no evidence of anything besides mountains and vineyards as far as the eye could see.

Eventually, we happened upon Logroño and our little hotel on the far west side of town, with an amazing mountain view out the window. And the city was far less touristy than anywhere else we visited on our trip, which made us feel like we could breathe, insulated from the chaos of the larger cities we’d been to. And while Logroño was small, it wasn’t tiny. Matt said it felt like a smaller version of Madrid.

One other interesting thing about Logroño is that it’s an important stop on the Camino de Santiago. The Camino de Santiago is an ancient pilgrimage route that stretches across Europe, and the route ends in the Spanish city of Santiago de Compostela. The symbol of the Camino de Santiago is a shell — so you’ll see that symbol frequently throughout Logroño.

How Many Days Do You Need in Logroño?

Two days would probably be plenty of time to spend in Logroño. That way, you could have one or one-and-a-half days to explore the city, and you could spend the other day or half-day checking out wine country!

Just like our visit to Bordeaux — France’s wine country — it turned out that January was the wrong time of year to attempt to visit vineyards or wineries. So, instead, we booked a tour of a nearby family-owned olive oil producer! More about that in a bit.

Things to Do in Logroño

If you’re in Logroño during the right time of year (March to November is best), a winery or vineyard visit would be super fun! Here’s one that picks you up in Logroño and takes you to two wineries in La Rioja.

Or, you could do what we did and visit an olive oil producer. We visited Aceites Hejul with this tour. While it was about 20-30 minutes outside Logroño, we were able to drive out there on our own in our rental car. Though I gotta say… most people who come all the way out to Logroño probably have rental cars. 😂

Okay, so spend at least half a day doing something like that. And the rest of the time, you can spend in Logroño proper.

One of the coolest areas in the city was Calle Laurel, a winding, narrow street full of tiny restaurants and people spilling out the doors, enjoying tapas/pinchos and drinks and conversations with friends and family. We ate at a fancy-ish restaurant on this street, but it was nearly empty and the food was just okay, so we probably would have been better off picking a place full of people. That’s the best kind of review, right?

Like any good Spanish city, Logroño has a few churches: the Co-Cathedral of Santa María de la Redonda is interesting with its double towers, and the Iglesia de Santiago el Real is only a four-minute walk away. Both are free to enter.

Logroño is also home to several museums. The La Rioja Museum, which is free, gives an overview of the region’s history from pre-history to the 20th century. And the Casa de las Ciencias, which is also free, is supposed to be good for families with kids.

How Expensive is Logroño?

Logroño is hands-down the least expensive city we visited on our trip. It was very much appreciated. The wine was local, delicious, and extremely cheap, at just a euro or two per glass. And there’s also the fact that there was free parking. After how much we’d spent on parking at every other hotel during the trip, I could have cried when I found out there was free parking just across the street from our hotel.

So yeah, Logroño was cheap. It’s far away from a lot of other places in Spain, and it’s not very cosmopolitan, but by god is it cheap. If you wanna eat and drink well on a budget, Logroño is for you.

Where We Ate

We weren’t in Logroño for very long, but a few places are worth mentioning from a food perspective.

Taberna de Portales: I almost didn’t even want to mention this place because I get the feeling it’s really for locals only. Not that they’re going to kick you out if you’re not a local — but that tourists generally don’t go here. I say this for two reasons. First, it has horrible reviews on TripAdvisor and Google. LOL. And second, the single waiter who was attending the entire restaurant for sure didn’t speak a lick of English.

We happened upon this place while we were checking out the nearby plaza and co-cathedral. We were looking for a good, cheap menú del día. Menú del día is a weekday lunch concept throughout Spain that typically gets you bread, a first course, a second course, a drink, and a coffee or dessert for about €10-12 per person. Being the weekend, and being near the “touristy” plaza, we weren’t surprised that most places were offering menús del día for closer to €18, which seemed like way too much. When we found Taberna de Portales had one for only €14,95 — and it went until 3:30pm, later than most menús del día are offered — we decided to stop in.

We also couldn’t help but notice this place was absolutely packed. We didn’t read the reviews or else I’m sure we wouldn’t have gone in. But we were hungry, and we figured it wouldn’t be packed to the brim with Spanish families if it totally sucked.

Yes, the service was slow and the waiter didn’t speak any English. It turns out that the majority of poor reviews were from people who had a problem with those things. But guess what? That’s what you get when you’re in Spain, especially in such a non-touristy town like Logroño. Matt and I went in to our lunch knowing that we could order in Spanish and knowing that service in Spain is slower than we’re used to in the U.S. It’s just different.

And it turned out we got an entire bottle of wine included, instead of just a glass, so the higher price was totally worth it.

So when I say I almost didn’t want to share this place, I only mean that I hope it doesn’t suddenly get overrun with tourists. 😉

Taberna de Portales
Calle Portales, 39
26001 Logroño, La Rioja
Spain

Cafe Nebraska: This is just a little breakfast cafe near where we stayed. But for some reason, we were having such a hard time finding a “Spanish” breakfast on our last morning in Logroño before leaving for Zaragoza.

In my mind, a Spanish breakfast is a cafe con leche and two pieces of toast with either tomato spread (pan/tostada con tomate) or butter and jam (pan/tostada con mantequilla y mermelada). Yeah, it was like 11:30am and getting “late” for breakfast… but not in Spain. I was truly confused why we went into like 4-5 restaurants asking for tostadas and they didn’t have any.

Finally we found “Cafe Nebraska,” strangely named in our Missouri opinions… but it had exactly what we needed. 🙂

Cafe Nebraska
Av. Club Deportivo, 39
26007 Logroño, La Rioja
Spain

Where We Stayed

We used a combination of money and points from our Chase Sapphire Preferred credit cards to book our hotels throughout this road trip, which made it quite a lot cheaper! In Logroño, we stayed at Hotel Logroño Parque.

It was on the far southwest side of the city, so it wasn’t super central, but it did have a gorgeous view of the mountains right outside our window. And it was only about a 15-20 minute walk to the city center, which wasn’t bad. Plus, it’s always kind of nice to stay in a neighborhood that isn’t super touristy… not that Logroño is very touristy to begin with. 😉

Final Thoughts

Logroño was a quiet place to spend a few days as our two-week trip came to an end. It may not be at the top of many travelers’ lists, but if you have a rental car and will be traveling near País Vasco, it could be worth a visit. And who can say no to cheap wine?

I’ll need to come back someday for some winery visits at a different time of year.

 

Have you ever been to Logroño or thought about visiting? Let me know in the comments!

-Cathy

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Originally Published on April 24, 2023.