Iberian Traveler - On The Road

Gastronomy Of Navarra
Pamplona is a city blessed with more than 300 cafés, bars and restaurants to choose from, offering some of the finest cuisine in the north, on a par with the Basque country and Catalunya. More than 80 local cafés, bars and restaurants participate in the annual pintxos competition, which celebrates the best of miniature haute cuisine. While most restaurants continue to offer their standard menu during the fiesta in addition to their special “Sanfermines Menu”, the pintxos bars and cafés located in the Old City (Bar Gaucho, Baserri, Iru, Museo, Fitero, La Mandarra), by necessity, cannot offer their standard offerings of haute cuisine pintxos at the bar during the fiesta. The last night to sample their usual array of award winning pintxos will be the 5th, which is also the last night the famous and historic Café Iruña on the Plaza del Castillo serves pintxos at the bar.

Most restaurants in Pamplona are smaller, family-style, so reservations for lunch and dinner are essential, and without exception on the 6th and 7th and over the weekend of the 10th, 11th and 12th, the start of the Bastille holiday when the French Basques fill the city. It is extremely important not to break a reservation without first contacting the restaurant, otherwise the table will sit empty for the entire night. Most restaurants have only one seating at lunch or dinner and will not offer your table to someone else, as it is not unusual for Navarrans arrive late for lunch or dinner and are never in a hurry to finish a meal.

There are cafés and taverns where you can find a quicker meal, but most will be located outside of the old city in the 1st and 2nd Ensanche; the Iturrama, San Jan Donibane and Ermitagaña neighborhoods.

Some of our favorite award-winning bars in other neighborhoods include Casa Luis (Padre Calatayud, 11), Chelsey (Iturrama, 20), handy to our AC Hotel headquarters, Aralar (Castillo de Maya, 25) , Melbourne (Olite, 36) and Letyana (Travesía Bayona 2). These will continue to offer an ample assortment of their more elaborate pintxos during the fiesta.

Some of our Favorite Restaurants

Gastronomic Dining
El Embrujo, C/ Padre Calatayud, 16
Alhambra, Bergamín, 7
Europa, Espoz y Mina, 11
Rodero, Emilo Arrieta, 3
Enekorri, Tudela, 14
Josetxo, Plaza Príncipe de Viana, 1
La Nuez, Taconera, 4
El Portal de Descalzos, Descalzos, 56

Traditional Navarran Cuisine
Otano, San Nicolás, 5
Casa Manolo, Garcia Castañón, 12
Casa Amparo, C/ Esquiroz, 22
Asador Olaverri, C/ Santa Marta, 4
La Olla, Avenida Roncesvalles, 2
San Fermín, C/ San Nicolás, 44-46

Fashion & Fusion
El Mercao, Tafalla, 7
La Trastienda del Colmado, Iturralde Y Suit 24

Navarra Tapas & Pintxos http://www.navarratapas.com/

Most people traveling to Spain for the first time will need to make some minor adjustments to their normal eating habits. This holds true both for the north and south, especially during the summer months when the days are long and don’t cool down until after 9:00 pm. Eating times come later in Spain than foreign guests are used to, especially in summer.
Desayuno – Breakfast is typically the lightest meal of the day, something simple after a late night dinner the night before. You should be able to find some sort of packaged pastry and espresso at any bar or restaurant open in the early morning hours, but during Sanfermín breakfast is not served until around 8:30, after the encierro.

During Sanfermines it’s always “bulls before breakfast”.

Be sure to try churros (fried crullers) and hot chocolate in the morning. This is quite popular in Pamplona as well as Madrid. The most lively spot for this typical Spanish breakfast is the bar in the Hotel Maisonnave in the old city.

There is also the traditional mid-morning break, called the Almuerzo, generally served between 10:30 and noon, when you can have your first tapas (pintxos in the Basque country) of the day, including a tortilla española (a potato omelet) with pan (fresh bread) or a bocadillo (a filled baguette).

Comida – Lunch, which is generally considered the main meal of the day, begins after 1:00, but is usually closer to 2:00 for most people. This holds true during the fiesta and is often starts even later on the weekends. This is also a major social hour in which one visits with family and friends. Note: butter is seldom served after the morning hours unless requested.
Cena - Dinner in the north typically begins at around 9:30 and is usually the lighter meal of the day unless you missed or skipped lunch. Dinner in Pamplona is often still being served well past mid-night during the fiesta. Most Pamplona restaurants will take a reservation for 9:00 pm, but not earlier. Most restaurants serve a special 4-course fiesta menu.

The official mode of dress for all events during the fiesta is the traditional festival costume of white and red: white shirt and pants, red pañuelico (bandana) and red faja (sash). The “official costume”, which is also worn by Pelota players in Navarra and the Basque country, can be purchased in Pamplona at any of the clothing stores around the city, including El Corte Inglés, Spain’s leading department store. Or better still, to insure the proper size and fit, you can bring your own pair of white pants (chinos, jeans) and a short-sleeved white polo style shirt or jersey.
Our Peña provides our own pañuelico for our clients. Pañuelicos and sashes (fajas) can be purchased from street vendors, out in full force. Men, women and children wear the same red and white costume. Ladies wear either all white or a mixture of red and white (red blouse, white skirt or pants-but not shorts, red bag and shoes). Dressing in San Fermín attire will allow you to integrate smoothly and completely into the spirit of the fiesta.

Hotel laundry service is limited on the 6th and 7th, and stores are closed on the 7th, so you’ll need to bring enough clothes to see you through the first two days.
Remember that the traditional pañuelico is donned at noon on the 6th with the firing of the rockets, the chupinazo, during the opening ceremony, not before, and is not taken off and put away until midnight of the 14th, during the Pobre de mí, the closing ceremony.

Please note that clothing stores as well as most other shops in the city will be closed from mid morning until late afternoon on 6 July for the opening ceremony, all day on the 7th, which is also an official banking holiday in Pamplona, and on Sundays. El Corte Inglés opens from 10:00 to 10:00 daily, Monday through Saturday. Retail stores, except those selling festival-related items, close in the afternoon for lunch, with only a few stores reopening after 4:30 pm.

It is important that you bring a very comfortable pair of shoes as you will be doing a great deal of walking around the city day and night. Although the historic quarter of the city isn’t large, the fiesta is spread out over a much wider area, with music venues and special events being held in several different parks and plazas, some up to a half-hour walk or further from the Plaza del Castillo, the heart of the old quarter. Sandals and “flip-flops” are not recommended.

The City of Pamplona always does an amazing job of keeping the streets and plazas clean, but you will inevitably encounter broken glass along your way, especially following the opening ceremony, in the early morning hours of the 7th, or on Saturday and Sunday mornings when the crowds are at their largest.

If you want to watch the “running of the bulls” and be comfortable, having a balcony reservation is very important; otherwise you could find yourself in the middle of the crowd, often 30 deep, that fills the only public viewing areas along the route of the encierro.

There are four major public viewing areas. Calle Santo Domingo, at the beginning of the run, has three separate areas; the small square in front of the Museum of Navarra, above where the runners begin, a short barricaded section half-way up Santo Domingo at Calle Mercado, and another small space on the stairs, where a few people can sit, just before the bulls break into the Town Hall Square and Plaza de Consistorial.

There is a narrow section along Mercaderes, at Chapitela, before the bulls turn onto Calle Estafeta. The last area runs from Telefonica to Callejón.
These areas are lined with a double wooden barricade. You can try to find a spot along the outside barricade, but you should arrive by 6:00 am when the carpenters are setting up the final sections, enclosing the route. These areas will be especially crowded the morning of the 7th and for the weekend encierros.

The space between the wooden barricades is reserved for the medical teams, police, runners leaving the run and those needing medical attention.
http://iberiantraveler.com/encierro.html

While we are no longer accepting reservations for the first encierro on the 7th, we do have some balcony space available from the 8th through the 14th.
Most of our prime viewing balconies can be found along Mercaderes facing La Curva, with one special balcony located above the Banesto Bank. Others are in the Town Hall Square, the Ayuntamiento, and along Calle Estafeta, the long canyon-like section of the run.

If you are not already one of our hotel or balcony clients, you can email us to request balcony reservations, or add an additional morning on one of our premium balconies for the very best views of the encierro.

MECA has selected the bull ranches, Granderías, for this years Feria del Toro.

Miura (Sevilla), Victoriano (Madrid), Cebada Gago (Cádiz), Jandilla (Badajoz), Dolores Aguirre Ybarra (Sevilla), Peñajara (Badajoz) El Pilar (Salamanca) Fuente Ymbro (Cádiz).

The trophy for the best bull ranch of SF09 was awarded to Dña. Dolores Aguirre Yabarra, whose bulls fought on 11 July (Serafín Marín, David Mora & Joselillo). The best bullfight of SF09 was awarded to the last fight on 10 July when Rubén Pinar faced bull No. 42, “Sabueso”, from the Jandilla ranch.

Ruins of the country's first Carthusian priory, Scala Dei, founded in the 13th century.

After two weeks and 3,000 kilometers of explorations, we reached the end of our own Galician pilgrimage on the Road of St. James-with our final 3 days in spectacular Santiago de Compostela.

Preparations are officially underway for the Holy Year - Xacobeo 2010, when the city expects between 8-9 million visitors. The Jubilee Year of Compostela has been celebrated since the Middle Ages, whenever the feast day of the Apostle St. James, July 25, falls on a Sunday. Celebrations will begin the eve of Dec. 31, 09 and end one year later and will include special exhibits and performances by international artists (Cecilia Bartoli, Lang, Lang, Zubin Mehta, Cirque du Soleil, Merce Cunningham). Mark your calendars!

In our Santiago wanderings, we were lucky to catch the filming of a crowd scene of the Martin Sheen / Emilio Estevez movie, a family drama, The Way, which was being shot on the magnificent Praza do Obradoiro.

While we lodged in Galicia's historic Paradors for our country stays, here we chose the superbly renovated 4-star Hotel Monumento San Francisco, a perfect blend of medieval and modern (with 50 monks still in residence). Its 76 rooms and huge suites combine the tranquility of a monastery with all the proper creature comforts of today, including a lovely indoor pool and fine gourmet restaurant. It provided us with true pampering at the end of our Camino. A jewel!

From the Ribeiro we crossed the Miño river and stepped back 30 years in time. The Portuguese Minho, far more pristine than its Spanish counterpart, is endowed with a number of highly photogenic fortress towns with their defensive walls and watch towers intact, filled with magnificently restored churches, beautifully manicured gardens, quintas (noble estates) and mosaic cobbled squares, along with thermal spas. Vila de Cerveira, Caminha, Monçao and Melgaço all delight visitors with their Old World charm.

In Melgaço, gateway to the Peneda-Gerês National Park, we dropped in to sample the area’s crisp, refreshing, slightly effervescent alvarinho vinho verde. Sampling here couldn’t be more pleasurable in the village’s Solar do Alvarinho wine center, a showcase for these fresh white wines, along with local cheeses, sausages, honey and handicrafts, including exquisite embroidered linens.

And a visit to the northern Minho valley wouldn’t be complete without an unforgettable gourmet lunch at Adega do Sossego in Peso. A tucked- away charmer, it serves gargantuan portions of local specialties, such as grilled trout stuffed with country ham, washed down with the house alvarinho wine, and ending with a complimentary miniature vat of their homemade digestif.

Ribeiro (Ourense province), the oldest appellation in Galicia, in medieval times, under the reign of King Garcia I, saw its wines, the potent tostados, exported from the court of Ribadavia to almost the whole of Europe. Ribadavia's thriving Jewish community became rich thanks to the pre-Inquisition wine commerce. In the 16th century Ribeiro wine was revered throughout Europe and even shipped to America. Cervantes described Ribadavia as Spain's "Mother of Wine". But in the 18th century the vineyards suffered a sharp decline as foreign wine merchants moved on to Porto. Then in the 19th century a vine plague devastated the Ribeiro wine industry.

The vineyards here are situated in the deep green hills that slope down to four rivers that irrigate this pastoral land. (Ribeiro in the Gallego language meaning River Bank).
At his Vina Mein estate in Leiro, ex-attorney Javier Alén has been a pioneer in the renaissance of Ribeiro wines, returning to its native grapes, and bringing the Treixadura, called the "queen of all white grapes", on to the world's stage. Adjacent to the winery, the owners have created a cozy and charming 8-room B&B from the original stone farmstead, which makes a delightful retreat for oenophiles. Vina Mein also owns a strikingly avant-garde, boutique hotel, a member of the prestigious Rusticae group, in the hamlet of San Clodio, adjacent to the Monastery.

Other noteworthy wine estates to include on your Ribeiro itinerary: The Coto do Gomariz and Casal de Armán, an 18th century winery with atmospheric 8-room hotel and delightful bistro with heavenly views.

Road signs in Galicia can be challenging, but navigating the Rías Baixas (Lower Estuaries) region proved to be most difficult due to poor or non-existent signage. Therefore, when touring the area, the help of a local guide is strongly advised.

Like the Ribeira Sacra, this D.O. is divided into 5 sub zones, the largest being the Val do Salnés, Salnés valley, consisting of rolling fields laced with stone and wire trellises (parrales) used to lift the vines away from the damp soil, towards the sunshine and to provide ventilation and prevent rot. The vineyards are planted predominately with the resistant albariño grape (Spain’s most expensive), and these rather feminine wines taste intensely fruity- peach, pear, citrus flavors.

Along with the Palacio de Fefiñanes, located in the wine capital of Cambados on its handsome medieval square, we found the countryside Pazo de Señorás and Agro de Bazán to be the most charming and welcoming.

Both boast stunning Pazos, or ancestral manor homes, these usually with private chapel, garden, hórreo (stone granary built on stilts) and dovecote. And both wineries produce delicate, aromatic wines that pare perfectly with the region’s superb seafood.

Although we based in Cambados at the Parador del Albariño, we also recommend the elegant, Belle Epoque spa hotel, the 5-star Gran Hotel on the pine covered island of A Toxa as a pampering, relaxing base.

While in the area one should also visit the 12th century Monastery of Armenteira, the 16th century Monastery of Poio and picturesque village of Combarro with its line up of hórreos facing the river.