After They Left...

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Yesterday morning, several people took off early, before the mass of the group. The rest of us headed to Bilbao Airport. Daniel and I stood in line with the choir for a bit, and then we went down the line giving hugs and goodbyes to these wonderful people. After our goodbyes, we headed to the lower level of the airport to find the Sixt Car Rental kiosk.

At Sixt, I was helped by a lovely young lady named Gloria who was very helpful and spoke better English than I speak Spanish. It took a little while to get everything in order, then I tried to enter our first hotel into the Nav system (Garmin) and it couldn’t find our hotel’s address. So, Gloria and her coworkers helped me to enter something CLOSE to where the hotel is, then they printed a Google map to take care of the rest. The car is a Renault Clio – very cute clean-burning diesel car. The trunk barely holds our luggage, but we made it work. ☺

The drive was longer than I had anticipated – about three hours – and there was an 18-euro toll that I had to pay. We pretty much stayed on the road with two small rest stops. We got to Tiedra, which is the pueblito where the hotel is (well, it’s on the outskirts, really) and had to ask for directions to the hotel. Tiedra is a very TINY town. If I was to guess by the look of it, that the population counts about 300 people. It was raining and very windy, so not many people were out. When we arrived at the hotel, nobody was at the desk, so I had to use their phone at reception to call the person (Ana), who came along to take care of us.

Hotel La Casona de Andrea is a beautiful boutique hotel in the middle of nowhere. It has a soccer field, horses, and is surrounded by beautiful countryside. I would suggest that people come here when there is excellent weather. Apparently summer is optimal, though very hot. The amenities are nice, the room is comfortable, the linens are soft, and the décor is beautiful. We did have a few flies in the room that were annoying… That being said, we were the only clients in the hotel for the night, so we got some very one-on-one service, which made us feel extra-special.

We headed from the hotel to Urueña, which is called “Villa del Libro” because we had heard that it was this fascinating town filled with bookstores. It is, but from what we gathered, the bookstores aren’t open all week (possibly only on Mondays). We found our way to the only restaurant open in Urueña, Los Lagares Meson. It was a little pricey, but it was really excellent food. We started with some soup with mushrooms and chorizo and some croquettes. Daniel had a dish that was beef in a wine sauce, which was very tender and delicious. Mine was called Solomillo, and was a butterflied steak (beef). Both were served with fried potato (big surprise). We ended with a flan and a cheese tart. The gentleman serving us also gave us a digestivo, which was a Licor de Hierbas and a coffee liqueur, both of which were an excellent end to and excellent meal. After eating, we wandered around Urueña, climbing to the ramparts, viewing the amazing sights of rolling hills of farmland.

We then headed to a town called Toro, which is the most cosmopolitan place in the immediate vicinity (without driving for 45 minutes to Valladolid), to buy some stuff in the mercado (market). Toro was a nice town, but it was late and we decided to not wander too much there, we headed back to the hotel to relax. We had a small meal for dinner – Daniel had some fresh fruit and I had some murcilla. I also had a glass of vino tinto (red wine). We were served by a handsome young man named Bernardo. We had a nice chat with Bernardo in our broken Spanish.

When we woke this morning, we headed to the hotel’s restaurant where they had a beautiful breakfast of fruit, meat, and pastries set-up for us. The lady running the food also made some café con leche for us, which was wonderful.

Today, we do the longest drive of our trip – from Tiedra to Lucena. It should be about seven hours. I won’t be able to post this until after the trip is done, so I’ll let you know how it goes! ☺

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Photos

Hotel
Hotel Casona de Andrea

Hotel View
View from our room at Casona de Andrea

Villa
Villa del Libros, Urueña

Portal
View through a doorway

View
View from the ramparts of Urueña

Urueña
Rooftops and bell tower in Urueña

Digestivo
Here's the digestivo bottles for what the guy gave us in Urueña.

Toro
This is the clock tower in Toro, near Tiedra