3 October overcast, humid and a bit warm

Today we left the Basque region and entered Rioja. The dual language disappeared immediately and welcoming signs from Rioja emerged.

We leave behind the Basque wines and a few nice food dishes. The wines appear similar to the lighter Zinfandels of Napa; naturally much cheaper locally. Most dinners included the wine at no up charge. The purchased wines were good, not expensive for restaurant wine, in nice bottles but not significantly better than the table wine. Most of the Basque wines were around 12.5% alcohol, the way we prefer them.

Managed to climb the equivalent of 1.3 empire state buildings, that is how I think of the climbs now: how many ESB equivalents. Yesterday was only about 2/3 rds ESB.

The road out included a number of stops at hilltop villages, each with nice but closed churches from the 12th or 13th century. The one exception was the fine transitional village of Viana.

In the middle ages Viana was the last refuge in Navarra and, at about 8 km from Castile country it was the place to exchange Navarra money for the new local currency. No Navarra funds were usable in Castile or so the story goes. Naturally we know who the money changers were, one of the later religions that Sridar alluded to.

Going back to Sridar’s comment about being older is difficult. “Sanathan Dharma” means everlasting as I understand it so the religion we call Hindu ( wrong as Hindu is just the name of the people the Raj used to describe their subjects ) could be described as forever. Some references I have read in the past put the beginnings of the local religion around 3000 B.C.E. making it somewhat younger than that of the money changers of Viana, a walled city that still retains much of their wall.

Sridar or Randy or others better versed in the history of the Dharma might appropriately jump in here.

In Viana I got to watch a game of handball or jai-lai played with a very hard ball about the size of a cricket ball, on a Fronton court. Tried to take a video but my technology failed as there was too much sun for me to see the screen and I ended up with all wall or ground. Older men, very much obese, clearly very good, and very very winded after each difficult point. Crowd, including me, cheering them on with each fine shot.

Got to Logroño in time for noon mass. Wanted to hear the organ and the singing in a nice sized cathedral. Quite a beauty, no pics as yet as clearly could not take them during the service. Gold baroque front and well painted side naves. Overall a very good experience. One interesting part was that the Spanish was much clearer as the priest spoke his sermon very slowly and enunciated well. Noticed the same when QB and I went to Vespers in Conques. Might be a good way to learn a language.

Pintxos in Logroño: A joy. QB and I wandered the Tapas quarter, yes, there is part of the old city where the bars and restaurants that specialize in Tapas congregate. Fish ones, ham ones, mushroom one (basically escargot filling in a mushroom; filled with garlic and oil and topped with a small shrimp, one euro please), and on and on. Finished our first excursion there with outstanding shrimps (oil, salt, garlic lightly grilled), and fried calamari where the breading was so light to be almost not there, but the garlic and oil and salt clearly were present.