80. A Road Trip - Northern Spain 2

Pamplona, as well as being the home of Rabo del Torro which we are yet to taste, is also the beginning of El Camino de Santiago, which we are yet to travel.  But we know how to do it - we follow the sign of the scallop shell.

The Way of St. James (in Spanish - El Camino de Santiago) is the pilgrimage route to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in the region of Galicia, northwestern Spain where tradition has it that the remains of the apostle Saint James are buried.

The Way of St. James was one of the most important Christian pilgrimages during medieval times, together with Rome and Jerusalem. Legend holds that St. James's remains were carried by boat from Jerusalem to northern Spain where he was buried on the site of what is now the city of Santiago de Compostela.

Traditionally, as with most pilgrimages, the Way of Saint James began at one's home and ended at the pilgrimage site. However a few of the routes are considered main ones. During the Middle Ages, the route was highly travelled, but the Black Death, the Protestant Reformation and political unrest in 16th-century Europe led to its decline. 

By the 1980s, only a few pilgrims per year arrived in Santiago. But the route now attracts a growing number of modern-day pilgrims from around the globe and was declared the first European Cultural Route in 1987 and also named a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  

These days the most popular starting point is Pamplona, 750 km from Santiago de Compostela. Needless to say there are a lot of companies now running pilgrim tours - the full version, the half version and the taster.

I don't know how many of the hundreds of people we saw along the 750 km route actually walk the whole distance, but I'd guess it is a lot.  And some of the mountain sections are quite spectacular - really 'Tour de France' stuff - and there are a lot of pilgrim cyclists as well.

If you could walk an average of 40 km per day, it would take you 19 days to complete the pilgrimage and a couple of days to recover.  That's a full three weeks.  We didn't have three weeks - so we drove it instead!  Although, walking might be an easier way to find the true country food of northern Spain - because we are certainly having no luck searching by car.

From Pamplona, in the Navarre region we drive 108 km south-west to Logrono in La Rioja.  With good rainfall these areas grow lots of good produce like wheat, barley, asparagus, capsicums, onions, artichokes, beans, peas, borage, lettuce, pears, peaches, wine grapes (tempranillo, merlot and cabernet), lamb, beef and pork.  They make great chorizo, a variety of sausages, baby lamb and of course, the famed Rioja wine (pronounced ree-o-ha).

Rick Stein advised us to have Chuletillas - baby lamb chops, chorizo and wine. Sounded like a good idea but both restaurants he recommended were a long way out of town and in the hills and it seemed wiser to eat locally.
  

Other than this prettily plaited garlic, Logrono had very little going for it.  We both had garlic soup for entree, which was barely warm and had soggy tempura vegetables in it.  I followed with Chuletillas, baby lamb chops that were cut so thin that the bones had shattered and my eight chops would only equal two 'normal' loin chops.  Paul had a mixed grill of chorizo, black pudding, pork cheek and ribs.  He was not impressed.  Nothing else on the plates but meat - we had to ask for some vegetables and were served a small bowl of boiled vegetables to share.  I swear they had been sitting in water for weeks!  Still, the Rioja was good.

With all of the great produce of this area, the restaurant food over the last four nights had been very poor but not cheap. Paul was loosing patience with my food pilgrimage.  I was holding my breath that our long dash across the wheat belt of central Spain to Leon, in the region of Leon y Castille, would be worth it.

We were looking for Castillian garlic soup, roast lamb, chick pea stew and bread.  It couldn't be that difficult, could it?

To my horror our hotel turned out to be a huge highway traveller stop on the outskirts of town where the air-con was struggling and lunch, rather than dinner, was the focus.

Desperate for some joy, Paul found a new friend who looked as though he was eating in the right places.  Maybe we should take advice.

With dread we fronted up for dinner at the normal time, 9.00 pm for the fixed menu, two choices per course.  We both had vegetable soup that turned out to be a pretty fair rendition of the Minestre that I was searching for in Tudela on Day 1.  Paul followed with an acceptable veal schnitzel and I had roast lamb which was four very tasty roasted bones with a little meat attached.

Dessert escapes me, but with coffee, the old waiter who looked as though he had worked here forever, brought us a whole bottle of home-made coffee liquor.  It was straight from the freezer, as were the glasses - served like limoncello.

Delicious!  We drank half the bottle.  All was fine with the world.