Sunday 12 March 2016

Yesterday our friends Steve and Mary drove us to JFK. The day before (Friday) they picked us up to head to NYC. We stopped in Philadelphia so they could buy 20 pounds of Parmesan cheese and then we continues to the city. Steve arranged for us to stay St the Navy Lodge on Staten Island which right at the base of the Verazano bridge. We took the Staten Island ferry into Manhattan and met our son at Coliccio & Sons for dinner.  OK restaurant but rather sterile.  Then Saturday during the day we met our son in Brooklyn and had lunch at The Meatball Shop, said our good byes and off to the airport.

I had found a decent fare on Iberia so that's who we flew. The flight was fine, but the seating cramped. We had trouble sleeping on the plane.  We arrived today in Madrid at 9:40 am. Going through immigration and customs was a breeze! So fast in fact we were able to catch a 10:45 bus to Logroño. We had to wait on our first cafe con leche!  We rode through some mountainous areas with snow.  Not a lot of snow but enough to make us glad we won't actually be walking for a couple of weeks - give spring a chance to warm things up a bit.

We arrived in Logroño at 2:45 and headed to the city center.The bus station was about a 10 minute walk. Stopped at a cafe and had the first of many cafe con le leches to come and then went to the parochial albergue de Santiago Real where the federation arranged for us to stay. We met two very nice hospitaleros, Elsa and Roberto. Logroñó is famous for its tapas so we did a short bar crawl trying vino y tapas in several places before turning in last night at the church run albergue