All very good here in the Rioja region of Spain. I´m staying with Eduardo in his home town, Logroño. Went into the Basque country today to watch some crazy rowing races involving tradtional boats and teams of huge oarsmaen. Also had a great barbecue on a fire made from vine twigs. Wine good, tapas excellent, last night we were out all night going bar to bar in the old town where every shop is a tapas bar specialising in something - seafood or mushrooms or sorbeto or whatever. you end up eating a huge amount, and everything has lots of salt on it, to make you buy more wine. Another excellent thing is the extremely dry Basque cider, poured into glasses over the shoulder at a range of about 1 metre.

more later