Route of the dinosaurs, Rioja Spain

I first came across the Dinosaur trail when doing research into our trip around Rioja and saw it mentioned in the Lonely Planet. Who knew that the home of Spanish wine country would also be home to some of the best fossilized dinosaur footprints ever discovered in Europe. Being a mum of 2 young boys who love dinosaurs, this was very quickly added to our ‘Must Do’ list.

We picked up a brochure from the hotel which contained a map of where to go. According to the map, there were 9 sites to visit. In search of the dinosaurs, you definitely need a car as each site is quite a drive apart. We ended up spending probably 2/3 of the day driving and searching – which was a bit longer than we had planned. Some sites were definitely better than others, but where it was a little disappointing, it made up for it by the scenic drive it took us on where we saw some amazing mountain ranges.

Map showing 9 sites along the Dinosaur route (Source: https://lariojaturismo.com)  

One of the sign posts to site #3. You have to focus as these can be easily missed as we discovered later in the day

We started our adventure of the Ruta de los Dinosaurios in Encisco and headed to STOP 1: Site #3 (Virgen del Campo)

Life size dinosaur sculptures helps brings the boy’s imagination alive

The wooden boardwalk makes it a nice and pleasant walk as we hunt for dino prints

Path gets you very close to see the footprints – which were very easy to spot here

Some foot prints which were not so obvious had been outlined for our untrained eyes  

STOP 2 was site #4 Valdcevillo which I would say was the most impressive and most interesting to look at, especially for the kids as there were even more life-sized dinosaurs out in the open field. This was also a bigger site, so it involved a bit of a longer walk for the kids

The path lets you get close alongside the footprints

A family of Iguanodons – two adults and a baby

The impressive Brachiosaurus

STOP 3 – The next site, near Navalsaz, which I think was #6 Cuesta Andorra was quite underwhelming and was hard to find as it was off-road, but eventually we spotted the footprints.

This was all we found at the site, didn’t capture the boys interest as much as the previous site

STOP 4 – The next site #7 Los Cayos took us into the mountain ranges and eventually we came to a tin roof at the side of a hill. We parked and walked down what appeared to be a newly constructed path and under the roof were these amazing dino prints

Impressive footprints!

View of the shed that houses the dino prints and the path leading to it from the road

We were awarded with some spectacular views from site #7

STOP 5 – sees us arriving at site #9 Arbol fosil where we discover, protected underneath a tin roof, a 11 meter long conifer trunk fossil. While it would have been an exciting discovery, this would have had to be the most underwhelming display as it looked like just a long rock log. I’m sure there is, without a doubt, some scientific significance to this finding, but when you are travelling with young kids in search of dino prints, this doesn’t seem all that interesting. We had also missed the sign of where to turn off and once we realised, it was a U-turn and driving back the way we came. It was getting late in the afternoon and dad was not impressed!

Replica of the conifer tree just near the car park

Following the route of the dinosaurs was something fun for the kids in the midst of our wine tasting whilst in Rioja. My suggestion with kids would be to visit site #3 (Virgen del Campo) and site #4 (Valdecevillo) – this is where you will see the best and most interesting displays that really capture the imagination of your young budding paleontologists.

Visit to the sites are FREE

For more information: https://lariojaturismo.com/en