La Rioja webcams

The wine country

La Rioja is the smallest region of mainland Spain and the home of its best-known wine. The Ebro runs along its northern edge, and the vineyards spread across the valley from Haro, where a quarter beside the railway station is lined with wineries more than a century old, to the flatter lands of the Rioja Baja around Alfaro. Logroño, the capital, is where the region goes out in the evening, to the narrow streets of tapas bars in its old town.

On the Way of St James

The French Way of the Camino de Santiago crosses La Rioja from east to west. Pilgrims arrive from Navarre over the stone bridge of Logroño, walk out past the lake of La Grajera and on through Nájera to Santo Domingo de la Calzada, the town that grew up around a saint's bridge and hostel and whose cathedral keeps a live hen and cockerel.

Mountains, snow and storks

South of the vineyards, the Sierra de la Demanda rises to San Lorenzo, at 2,271 m (7,451 ft) the highest mountain in the region. Ezcaray sits in the valley at its foot, and the small ski resort of Valdezcaray climbs its slopes. At the other end of La Rioja, the church of San Miguel in Alfaro holds the largest colony of white storks in the world on a single building.

When to watch La Rioja

La Rioja is one hour ahead of the UK and Ireland. Summers in the Ebro valley are hot and winters cold, with fog along the river on still mornings, while the mountains catch the snow. The grape harvest runs from late September into October, and Logroño celebrates it with its San Mateo fiestas.