Ezcaray, small rural getaway

Ezcaray It is a municipality that is in The Rioja, a Spanish autonomous community, a land crossed by seven rivers where two landscapes prevail, a valley with a Mediterranean climate and a more humid mountain area.

La Rioja is a land of wines, a meeting place for cultures and, in addition to its history, it is also a treasure trove of paleontologists as there are many well-preserved dinosaur footprints. Thus, it is a rural destination that offers its own and today we are going to discover it.

Ezcaray Tourism

It is in the northwest of La Rioja, in the area known as La Rioja Alta. The town has little more than two thousand inhabitants, but in summer the population grows a lot when tourists come from all over to enjoy their honeys.

Ezcaray It was founded by the Navarrese kings to repopulate the border and as you must suppose the origin of the name is Euzkera: haitz - Garau or high rock, in reference to a rock, about 200 meters high, which can be seen at the entrance to the valley. Castile annexed it in 1076 but somehow many areas of the valley managed to conserve the use of Euzkera, at least until the XNUMXth century.

Due to its location, the valley has suffered the events of the history of Spain, but a large part of them have been revitalized by the tourism industry. Today travelers come to see the old town, its streets and squares, local crafts, old churches, the historic cloth factory, "El Fuerte", the most palatial residences, local festivals and, of course, the beautiful forests that decorate the valley with their greens.

The villa bears the title of «First tourist town of La Rioja» so let's see better what we can do and visit around here. Starting with palatial residences we can name the Torremúzquiz Palace and Angel Palace. Both are near the church and both are from the XNUMXth century.

Is huge baroque style houses, with several stories high, balconies with lintels, beautiful windows, doors and chairs. The Palacio del Ángel has a façade with a rococo shield, a niche with the ceramic image of San Miguel and ashlar stone, for example.

There are other palaces worth seeing, the Azcárate Palace XNUMXth century, owned by a wealthy family of landowners, or the Archbishop Barroet Palaceto House of the Gil de la Cuesta, House of the Gandásegui, House of the Masip, Old Telephone House of the seventeenth century, the House of the Cuezva and of House of Don Ramón Martínez, For example.

La Royal Cloth Factory It has been an Asset of Cultural Interest since 1992 and dates from the XNUMXth century. The Church of the Santa María la Mayor, It was built between the 1967th and XNUMXth centuries and is in the Romanesque style, declared a monument in XNUMX. Inside there is a beautiful main altarpiece, from the XNUMXth century, and in its sacristy there is a museum that brings together beautiful and old carvings from other villages and a treasure: a silver parish cross in the Plateresque Gothic style.

Continuing with the religious plane there are two hermitages, the Hermitage of Santa Barbara, from the XNUMXth century, and the Hermitage of the Virgin of Allende, with an image from the XNUMXth century, the patron saint of the town, plus about ten canvases with figures of angels, six of which have arquebuses instead of a sword.

Ezcaray also has sources, four: the Fuente del Sauco of 1920, the Fountain of Peace of 1841, the Fountain of the Church and the Fountain of the Plaza de la Verdura. And bridges, the Puente de la Estación dating from 1925, the Landía Bridge from the XNUMXth century and the Puente Canto from the same century.

Once you have toured the village and its heritage treasures, then you can go out and visit the natural environment it is a privileged place for outdoor sports and hiking. Mountains and valley offer us kilometers of routes to do on foot or by mountain bike and the forests give us smells and colors with their fruit trees, their pines, beech and alders, for example.

You can skiing in winter, hunting and fishing, golfing, mushroom picking or active sightseeing.vo. The first thing you can do in Valdezcaray that is the ski resort and mountain of La Rioja. It is only 14 kilometers from the town, in the Sierra de la Demanda, on the north face of the San Lorenzo peak, 2271 meters high. It has recently been remodeled and is more modern and functional than it was, there are new slopes, snow cannons, chair lifts and new buildings.

Valdezcaray has the capacity to receive 300 thousand people a year: 4 green slopes, 10 red, six blue, two black and two yellow. Hunting and fishing? For fishing there is the river Oja and its trout, and for hunting the forests and meadows around. In autumn the hunting of the wood pigeon and malviz opens and it is possible to request stalks for the hunting of deer and roe deer in their mating season. Obviously you must have a weapons permit and a federative card.

La mycology here you have a treasure: there are many types of habitats, oak groves, pine forests, beech trees with a lot of shade, so all kinds of fungi are born: boletus, polyporus, amanite mushrooms, russulas. yes, you must be aware of local measures for its preservation and maintenance. It is a decree of 2015 that regulates the harvesting of mushrooms in La Rioja and it is advisable to consult it before going on an adventure.

Hiking and mountain biking? In principle there Long Distance Trails or GR, marked in red and white, and with distances of more than 50 kilometers. Through Ezcaraz passes the GR-190, of the Iberian High Valleys, and the GR-93, Sierras Riojanas. Then there is the Oja greenway, very popular, which follows the trail of the old train that linked Ezcaray with Haro, although it only goes as far as Casalarreina.

Another is the Horseshoe path following the outline of the river Oja, beginning in Ezcaray and ending in Posadas, round trip. It is a simple path by the sea and only 10 kilometers long. Finally, the village has seven short walks or trails, which have yellow and white markings, all over the valley and different difficulties. And if you are one of those who ride a bike then you can take advantage of the many tracks and paths that go up and down in the valley.

It goes without saying that in the village you can stay and taste the best Riojan dishes (meats, trout, caparrones, beans, vegetable stew, Riojan potatoes). So, how about a rural weekend in Ezcaray?


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