Jaca to Briones …..Bulls, Wine & Tapas

September 19th

After a mediocre breakfast we got rolling asap as it will be a full day…

….arrived in Pamplona by mid morning >> yes another beautiful sunny and warm day. The first order of business was to walk the route of the bull runs, the bulls stay in the paddock below:

……and at 8AM the fireworks go off and the bulls start running uphill through the streets of Pamplona chasing those brave or drunk enough to face the risk of being trampled or gored……you have to a love a good old blood “sport” the “Encierro”:

….finally they reach the PlazaTorres (it takes about 3 minutes)….and continues every July for a week.

Presiding in front of the bullring is a statue of Ernest Hemingway who immortalized the town/spectacle in his book, The Sun Also Rises:

There being no “spectacle” at this time of the year, the count down has started till next year:

…on the way back, we lucked out and bumped into a full-on fiesta, in celebration of the wine harvest which is now occurring throughout the region…….fireworks, bands, a parade and of course the prerequisite giganteses, great fun:

We did manage to visit the Basilica which while a splendid building is not quite the equal of some we have seen….

Walked around the old town which is picturesque …no time for tapas but we did get some travelling food.

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Then it was time to mount up and drive into the Rioja, the wine growing capital of Spain. As we drove we passed numerous directions to castles, churches and monasteries in the hills and towns branching from the highway……again one could spend quite some time visiting these sites.

….and of course the vineyards which grew thicker as wineries seemed to be everywhere as we closed in on Briones, where we will spend two nights!

Finally, we arrived in Briones:  …and our lodgings at the Casa Rural El Messon…..

….found the lady owner who did not speak Franglaise…so it was sign language all the way …of course we had our Booking.com confirmation so all was good. Explanations were sparse as after all this was Sunday, there was a festival in town and she was having a family comida (dinner). However we did manage to find out that all restos were closed within a radius of a million kilometers save for one place in town……WHEW!!! …..and we were beginning to think we would have only wine for supper.

We found the resto after a bit, had a nice dinner in a converted storage facility … a family run affair and the young guys (waiters) really tried hard to please (and polish their English skills)

Time to call it a night …..these 9PM dinners are a killers…