Calahorra
An On-the-Road Adventure
Really, this was the only exciting(?) aspect of visiting the city of Calahorra.
The straight, fastest route from Soria to Calahorra takes about 90 minutes. Since we had all day to make the trip, we decided to take a longer route through the countryside. One of the brochures we got at the Soria Officina de Tourism had driving routes on back-roads of the area. We chose one that would get us eventually to Calahorra and set out. We were below half on the fuel gauge so I decided we’d get gas at the first station we found.
Off we went. We drove slowly through the countryside. We saw farms. We saw tiny villages with maybe half a dozen houses (and, always, a church). We saw a flock of sheep moving on the road from one pasture to another and watched as two sheep dogs herded them to one side of the road so we could get by. What we did not see was a gas station but I knew we had plenty of gas to get us to Calahorra.
After a couple hours of this, we got on a proper road that ran alongside a river and would take us almost all the way to Calahorra. I put our destination in the GPS and got a note that due to a road closure we would be routed on a detour. Fine. Whatever. We headed toward Calahorra.
I was really hoping to see a gas station. The car shows distance to empty and we were still fine, but we would have been finer with a full tank. Then we got to a good-sized town — with no gas stations — and I realized the GPS had us turning off the main road just before the town. “Hmmmmm,” thought I; “I wonder why it would do that?” Well, ok, we’ll follow the GPS.
We started to climb on a really twisting, turning, poorly-maintained road into a mountainous area. There was not another car on the road and the GPS said the next turn we had to make was 50 miles away. After about fifteen minutes I said, “Nope, I am not comfortable with this.” We turned around and went back to the town. There I checked the GPS and realized it showed the main road along the river was closed a mile past this town. I checked the GPS on my phone: same thing: the road is closed. That’s why the GPS was routing us on that mountain road.
Now I am a little worried. We haven’t seen a gas station and we may have to go back quite a way to get to another route to our destination. My fevered imagination envisions a situation where no matter what decision I make, we could run out of gas, out in the middle of nowhere.
I went into a hotel in the town to ask there where in hell is the closest gas station. The woman I asked said, “In Arnedo” which is about 20 minutes past the closed part of the road. “But,” I said, “the road to Arnedo is closed” and showed her on my phone’s GPS. She replied, “No, it isn’t closed. It’s got a traffic signal where they’re working on the road but it’s not closed.” Though she was speaking English as well as me, I asked about four times to make sure I got it right
I returned to the car, greatly relieved. We took off on the main road, got to the signal that regulated traffic on the road that allowed cars to go in one direction and then the other — the place where GPS thought the road was completely closed — drove through and headed to Calahorra. We got there in about an hour, with plenty of gas in the tank. We checked in. We went to the bar. We had a large glass of wine. We had several large glasses of wine.
I trust GPS almost explicitly. In this case, both GPS systems were showing a road closed when it wasn’t and so routed us way, way off the correct route, onto that mountain road. The technology is not perfect — I won’t trust it so explicitly again. It’s this kind of experience that makes me want to book our travels on Rick Steves tours — nothing like this happens to them!
Calahorra, itself: not so interesting. It’s a fairly industrial city and one industrial area has grown around the Parador in its 50 years of existence, so not a great location. However, this Parador renewed our faith in Paradores: our room was excellent, everyone was as nice and helpful as can be, the bar was enjoyable (the “vino de la casa” was a Rioja and cost $5), the restaurant excellent.
Next stop: an unusual train station. Really.