Stops between Leon to Rioja?

Hey, just a few questions:

1. When? What time of year?
2. Do you want to do it in one day? Will you stop in Burgos?
3. Do you prefer nice landscapes or beautiful churches or historical places? Or wineries.
4. Where will you stay in La Rioja? Not the same if you are going toSanto Domingo de la Calzada, Logroño or Arnedo. Or if you go to Rioja Alavesa in the Basque Country

Also the trip to San Sebastian can be influenced by where you leave from..

Places I enjoyed during a trip across Northern Spain in 2016 (in addition to the cities you've already mentioned):

• A Coruna, Betanzos and Potevedra in Galicia. Also small towns of Tui, Cambados and Combarro. Vigo is dull.

• Oviedo, known for very old churches. Not a lively city; I've read the locals go to coastal/industrial town of Gijon for excitement.

• Astorga, outside Leon -- one Gaudi building.

• Santillana del Mar -- medieval town turned hyper-touristy destination. Worth brief stop for wandering if it significant detour not required. I saw an interesting ceramics store, though I don't know whether it survived the pandemic. Some of the goods reminded me of products made in Ubeda (Andalucia), but I'm no expert on Spanish regional ceramics.

• Comillas -- some modernista architecture.

• Picos de Europa -- one of Spain's most scenic areas, with mountains and gorges. The Fuente De lift often requires a wait. The old stone village of Potes is extremely picturesque, though it gets its share of tourists.

• Laguardia -- lovely medieval hill town in or near Rioja area. There's an important church (very old fresco, I believe), which I missed because tourist office--keeper of key at the time--was closed for local festival. Check ahead of time on where to park below medieval district. You'll want to be near the elevator.

• Burgos-- attractive (and windy!) city on pilgrimage route, meaning lots of visitors. Major sights are cathedral and convent or two on outskirts of town.

• Vitoria-Gasteiz -- interior Basque Capital -- relatively non-touristy city with hilltop medieval district. Elevators assist with the climb.

• Bilbao -- far less touristy and with larger historic center than San Sebastian.

• Basque coastal villages of Bermeo and Zarautz/Getaria/Zumaia. There seems to be unanimous agreement that Lekeitio is very nice, but I haven't been there.

I used public transportation, so I don't know where you might run into parking challenges.

dlindstrom will provide great suggestions. Last year while visiting that area his suggestions were outstanding. We too had a rental car.

My question is how much time have you allocated to that segment of the trip.

In that area, over a couple trips, we enjoyed Burgos, Cartuja de Miraflores on the outskirts of Burgos, the cathedral in Santo Domingo de la Calzada, Ezcaray, Cañón del Río Lobos Natural Park, Sad Hill Cemetery (filming location The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly), San Vicente de la Sonsierra, Laguardia, and Briones. There are plenty more, but you’ll only have a short time to see a couple places.

Responding to dlindstrom; my trip starts in the end of August and finish in the beginning of September. I love beautiful landscapes, small villages, interacting with locals but also old architecture, churches and good local food and wine of course. I have only have reservations in Bilbao right now so I am wide open. I was looking at this place in Estollo to stay in Rioja, what do you think? While there would love to see a couple of wineries. I understand that a lot of then may be close for that month.

To Acraven, thank you for give me so much to chew on. I have to get busy and do my research. I have a reservation close to Santillana Del Mar but I think I am going to cancel and just make a quick stop there. I have been to Gijon before and its beautiful and fun. We did a home exchange just south of there in a tiny village outside of Nava. We also visited Cangas de Onis and it was such a gorgeous landscape and Mountains.

Jaimeelsabio thank you for your suggestions, its so hard to decided where to stop and for how long. So much to see and so little time. If all goes well and the world allows it I will make my travels a bit longer than two weeks. Actually I am in search of a gorgeous spot close to the ocean where we can rent a place for a few months. My husband would love that, he’s not much on exploring too much.

I’ve never been to Estollo, but I encourage you to check hotels, restaurants, and stores that are there. A quick look on TripAdvisor shows no restaurants, no things to do, and one hotel. Even the Google truck hasn’t been there, so there’s no street view.

What I found on my trip last year is that many of the small interior villages are slowly dying. We got to a few towns where we were staying only to find there were few if any stores, and only a couple restaurants.

Many of the wineries in that area are in the Haro area. This link is to bodegas in La Rioja. The second link is to an article on Rioja wines and wine routes. There are many more bodegas than mentioned in the article.

Second the suggestion of beautiful Laguardia and highly recommend the nearby Bodegas Baigorri for an exceptional wine tasting with lunch.

Farther east is quiet (when we were there Sept., 2019) Hondaribbia. The food there, full meals and, especially, pinxtos were excellent. Also highly recommend the nearby Chillida Leku sculpture gardens.

Enjoy!

Starting with the end of you trip, skip Estollo. Jaime makes some good points about such small villages. It is the kind of town with many Casa Rurales which families and groups of friends like to rent for several days or a week to enjoy the countryside. It is a beautiful area, but not really for a traveler passing through. (@Jaimeelsabio thanks for the kind words)

Three towns I would suggest are Briones, San Vicente de la Sonsierra, and Abalos. Briones is one of the Pueblos más Bonitos de España, San Vicente has a castle, and Abalos is small and similar to Estollo. All three have hotels and restaurants, and wineries in the town.
September is the harvest month, and most wineries will be open when you are there.

About the trip from Leon to La Rioja. The simplest way is to take the A231 and N120 to Burgos. As Jaime and Acraven have mentioned, the cathedral in Burgos is worth a visit. I really enjoyed visiting it. The Cartuja de Miraflores is a real gem. After Burgos take the N120 to, for example, San Vicente.

If you wanted a longer roundabout way, you could go through the Valle de Valderredible. Leave Leon, take the A231 to the A67 north to Aguilar de Campoo, a bit further up is Quintanilla de las Torres and then go east on the CA273. The valley if full of little rupestre chuches, but the colegiata de San Martín de Elines is a fine example of Romanesque architecture. At the end of the valley is Orbaneja del Castillo. There is a cave in the middle of the town, and a steam flows out from it dividing the village. There is also a pretty waterfall where the steam flows over the cliff. From there you take the N623 south. The better drive is to go down to Burgos and pick up the AP1 and turn off on the N232 in Pancorbo.

Hope that helps to organize you trip from Leon to La Rioja

Thank you again @jaimeelsabio, @mml and @dlindstrom. I am definitely dropping Estollo from my plans. It makes perfect sense that something like that would be better to enjoy for a longer term and no just a short visit.

I had San Vicente in my radar but no Briones or Abalos, it sounds wonderful. Also I like the idea of taking the the alternative route to Rioja and follow Valle de Valderredible.

I am so happy I posted my question here, you all are a treasure of information and will help me tremendously to plan my trip.

So funny...I´ve been to La Rioja hundreds of times, also to San Millán de la Cogolla (monasteries of Suso and Yuso) and it´s the first time I´ve ever heard of Estollo (90 inhabitants and in the middle of nowhere)...

Mikel, I´d heard the name Estollo before, but wouldn´t have been able to find it on a map. Seeing where it is I always thought it was just part of Berceo. Like Upper Berceo and Lower Berceo.

Laguardia, San Vicente de la Sonsierra, and Briones are close together and can be seen on the same day. When we visited them we were staying at the Parador in Santo Domingo de la Calzada.

If you decide to visit Laguardia, there is free parking by the Polideportivo Laguardia. From it, walk a couple minutes at take the elevator (Ascensor de Laguardia) up to the upper town. In San Vicente we parking in a lot (field) in front of Consultorio Médico San Vicente de la Sonsierra off of Calle San Pelayo. From it we walked up to the castle. There are some nice views from the tower, which is pretty much all that’s left of the castle. The church next to the castle was closed when we were there. In Briones we parked at the free lot located at Ctra. Briones a Peñacerrada, 10. It is beside Asador de pollos la estacion. From there we walked up to the upper town.

Dlindstrom, I believe it´s a small "hamlet" part of Berceo...which is also a very small town, indeed! The visit to Yuso and Suso is compulsory!

Yes Mikel, I was just taking a 2nd look at Estollo located in The Valley San Millán de la Corolla and is a UNESCO site for Yuso and Suso Monasteries. No so shabby after all.

Yes, Suso and Yuso (Yuso is San Millán de la Cogolla, the newest one) are UNESCO World Heritage Sites, Estollo is a tiny town very close to San Millán.

San Millan (both) are nice, but I still prefer the monastery of Cañas, which has finally reopened after being closed for 3 years.

Hayewe, it looks like we done a good job on helping you with you first question. As for you second question, not so much. I have sent you a PM with a route from La Rioja to San Sebastian. If you liked the Valderredible route, you might like this one.

@dlinstrom yes indeed! I got lucky to have run in to such a great group of experience travelers. As where to stay, I am doing a bunch or Airb&bs and we all the info I got from you all I have a long list of places I want to see and not enough time to see it all.

Hi everyone!
You all seem to be very knowledgeable about spain. I was wondering if you could tell me about Cies Islands? I didn’t even realized that they existed until recently.
I need to know where to stay to be able to take a ferry to the island?
Is it worth the trip there?
Thank you 😊

The islands are part of a natural park. You can find info about visiting the islands on the park's webpage.