Day 6 – Calle del Laurel, Logroño’s famous pincho street

Our next stop: Logroño.

Logroño is a small city and not really on the radar as a tourist destination. Having said that, the city welcomes hikers who stop here on their pilgrimage of the famous Camino de Santiago, with the route running through the city. While small, Logroño is the capital of La Rioja, Spain’s main wine producing region.

Our first impression of Logroño was not what we were expecting. Driving into the city centre to our hotel, it was very commercial with an industrial feel and I hate to say it, but it was somewhat depressing. It probably didn’t help that it was overcast and that we drove into town when all the streets were deserted (siesta time). We had 3 nights booked in Logroño as this was to be our base for visiting the wineries in the La Rioja region & we weren’t sure if we had made the right choice. I realised later that the hotel was in the newer part of town. The history and beauty of Logroño was to be found in the old town.

As the sun faded, the city came alive! The highlight of Logroño for us was Calle de Laurel, the famed street of pincho bars in the heart of the old town that is about 200 meters long. There is over 60 restaurants and bars that offer tapas and pinchos, with each restaurant/bar cooking up their own specialty.

We ate here ALL 3 nights of our stay in Logroño and thoroughly enjoyed our pinchos crawl. Let’s just say we ate our way down the street 🙂

I’ll just let the pictures do the talking! Try not to drool too much!!

Very busy and crowded – we had to hold onto the boys tightly so as to not lose them

One of the things that surprised us about Logroño was that it was very much a typical local Spanish city, there were barely any tourists around. Eating along the Calle de Laurel, it was quite tricky as not many spoke English. Luckily my husband knew some Spanish so he was assigned the important task of ordering our food.

The prawn fritters were a favourite with the boys – they ended up eating quite a number of these!

Walking down Calle de Laurel searching for the next yummy plates of pinchos. This was taken early in the evening before the crowds descended onto the eat street.

It’s standing room only, so an activity book and backpack as a seat keeps Master O rested and entertained

I can see why travellers use Logroño as a base for exploring the La Rioja region. It is when leaving the city that you are blessed with some stunning scenery of the Spanish countryside and amazing wineries. It’s probably good to note that it’s best to have a car to get yourself around as everything is quite spread out.

Logroño certainly was a little gem of a surprise. It delivered us a wonderful dining experience, one could say confidently that it was indeed foodie heaven! It was certainly a great way to give the boys plenty of opportunities to sample new food and the pinchos were the perfect bite size samplers! We happily filled our bellies each night, fueled up and ready to explore and sample some wines that the region is world famous for!