Where: Arnedo, third biggest town in La Rioja. You can see it on Google Maps here.
When: October 2023
Why: There´s no Ibis hotel in Logroño, the capital of La Rioja. There´s no Ibis hotel in Burgos, a huge, important, tourist city in Spain. So why is there an Ibis Styles in Arnedo, a small town of 15,000 people, in the middle of nowhere? As it´s just over an hour away from our house and I had a hotels.com voucher to spend, we decided to go find out.
Intro
I´m not normally someone who follows particular brands. However, as a family of three, I do often look to see if there is an Ibis hotel near to where we are travelling as I know they usually have rooms to accommodate families, and they are usually of an acceptable standard. (I´m also now an Accor Club member, so that I can occasionally get better rooms).
I was online looking for Ibis hotels in our area and I noticed that there was randomly one in the tiny town of Arnedo, about an hour and a half drive from where we live in Pamplona. We had no idea what was in Arnedo, but we decided to book a night here anyhow, just to have a night away.
It was only after we´d booked that we thought we´d better investigate this small town and see if there was anything for us to do. And we found that there´s loads to do in the area and some pretty cool things in the town too. This is a fascinating, forgotten area in-between three major Spanish cities (Logroño in La Rioja, Pamplona in Navarra and Zaragoza in Arragon), but a place with some unique things to visit, including hot springs, dinosaurs and shoes.
Getting there
For us, we drove. It took us about an hour and a half to drive here from Pamplona.
There doesn´t appear to be public transport information embedded into Google Maps, but I did some research and it appears that there are buses to Logroño (1 hour, €4.30), Calahorra (40 minutes) and Enciso, where the dinosaurs live. The buses appear to be run by Jimenez Movilidad. You can get up to date times and book tickets on their website.
There is a bus station in Arnedo. You can find out all about it here.
Both Logroño and Calahorra have train stations, with trains that connect to Madrid and Barcelona. You can get train information and buy tickets (in English) on the Renfe website.
La Estellesa bus company run a bus from Pamplona to Calahorra. I didn´t know this route existed until we randomly passed the bus while dropping our son off at his childminders, after I started writing this page. It looks like there´s two buses per day, they take about two hours and cost €10.30.
What we did and didn´t do on our holiday
Castle
So why would anyone go to Arnedo? Looking on Google and Wikipedia, the first thing I found out is that Arnedo has a castle.
This Moorish castle sits dramatically, on a single mountain top, dominating the town – next to the Lupo supermarket car park (see photo at top of the page – this was taken from the supermarket car park). The location is stupendous and so dramatic. The ruins of the castle rock seem to have melted into the rock of the mountain, until they are one lone edifice standing tall, looming over the town. It´s wonderfully dramatic – especially seen from the Ciudad de Arnedo shopping area, on the edge of town.
The Romans originally built a fortification here, but the current castle was built by the Moors in the 9th century. It was a very important castle and during the reconquista, it passed between Moorish and Christian hands a number of times (according to Wikipedia).
Sadly we didn´t visit the castle on this visit, but I´d definitely like to in the future. You can walk up to the castle via wooden steps, that run up the side of the mountain. I think you can also drive pretty close to the top and walk from there. To visit the actual castle you need to book a guided tour with the tourist office. You can find out their contact information here.
Cave of 100 pillars
The landscape in this area is extremely strange and unique. The hills are made of soft, copper-coloured sand-stone, and every hillside seems to have been carved with caves. Driving around here was so difficult for me as I just wanted to look at every hillside, they were so interesting.
In Arnedo, there is the Cave of 100 Pillars. Under the Cerro de San Miguel is a huge cave complex, probably built in the middle ages as a safe place for local people to hide. They think that it used to also house the Monastery of San Miguel.
Unfortunately, we also didn´t go here as you also have to prearrange visits with the tourist office and we didn´t have enough time. You can find out about it and get contact info for the Tourist Office at the Arnedo Town Hall website.
Arnadillo Hot Springs
The first thing we did do on our trip was go to the hot springs of Arnadillo. Before our trip, I was actually trying to find out where some other hot springs are, some that I know of that are further south – so I went on to Google Maps and typed in hot springs – and where came up? The next village to where we were already going to stay!
Arnadillo is a gorgeous little village, located in a crack between mountains about 13 km from Arnedo. The road here is so dramatic, along a very special valley. I don´t know if the whole river is extra warm, because of the hot springs, but it seemed to be that this valley had a different eco-system to the dry area surrounding it; there were palm trees and so many birch trees, standing by the river. It was like a long, protected oasis. Not only this, but the valley curves this way and that, around cave pocketed cliffs, under archways, around rock falls. It was very exciting to drive.
The hot springs in Arnadillo are located on the far side of the village, just next to the river. They are open and free to visit. There´s no facilities – apart from a car park, a picnic area and a cold shower. We had to change under our towels, by the riverside.
The baths are stone baths, built at the riverside, with uneven stone steps. My five year old came in the water with me and I was very careful that he didn´t fall on the wet rocks. There´s three baths, that all connect together – though there didn´t seem to be any difference to them.
From the side of the baths, there were steps to the river, so if you wanted to, you could soak in the hot water, then jump into the cold, fresh water of this rushing stream – then back in the baths.
The warm water is sultry, sulphuric and stupendously warm. Dropping into the baths, I could feel all of my cares drifting away. Even my little boy loved it, and was calm and floaty in the water.
The baths are free and just open to the public. The car park is free for the first 15 minutes and then something small like 3c per minute (I think we paid 43c). The baths are open from 6a.m. to midnight.
Also to note, there is a huge spa hotel in Arnadillo, called Balneario Terma Europa Arnedillo. This hotel has spas and a wave pool.
Dinosaurs
So the other thing that we spotted, while doing research on Google Maps, is this is the location of the Ruta de los Dinosaurios (The Dinosaur Route).
You don´t often think of dinosaurs when you think of Spain, and yet many remains have been found in this area of La Rioja. Apparently, this area used to be a delta of the Tethys Sea (a sea which covered most of what is now Europe), and in this delta dinosaurs used to hang out, because there was a lot of vegetation.
What you can see today are lots and lots of dinosaur footprints (cayos) and there are many sites in this area where you can see these or dinosaur related attractions.
There´s a great pdf guide that you can download (in English) which explains all of the dinosaur sites on the Route of Dinosaurs. They mostly stretch from the village of Enciso, down to the village of Igea.
For us, we only visited one of the sites in Enciso, the Senda de los Dinosaurus, a.k.a. crocodile paths. To be honest, it was a bit of a strange and unnerving visit. The footprints were located on a scrubby hillside, up a steep, single track lane, tucked away behind the El Barranco Perdido (Lost Canyon) theme park. The footprints were on a large rock, which had some walkways running around it, a random slide and some dinosaur models. There were loads of dinosaur footprints in the rock, which was really cool – but the isolated site felt a little unnerving. The smell of sulphur coming from the local stream I think added to the strangeness of the site. However, it was free and just there and it´s so cool that you can just walk into a field and see dinosaur footprints.
Sadly for me, my son wasn´t that interested in the dinosaurs, so we decided not to explore further. But again, maybe when he´s a little older we can go back because there are some other cool places to see. These include The Center of Palaeontological Interpretation of La Rioja in Igea, The Paleological Centre in Enciso, and the aforementioned Lost Canyon theme park.
The Lost Canyon Theme Park (El Barranco Perdido) has a dinosaur museum (I wasn´t sure if this was separate to the park; it was on the same site), swimming pools and an assault course area, with zip-wires etc. You have to reserve a place if you want to visit. I´ve tried to find prices but there aren´t any currently listed on their site, nor can you currently make reservations (It looks like it´s only open from April to October). www.barrancoperdido.com
Shoe shopping
The other thing that Arnedo is famous for is shoe manufacturers and shoe shops. On the edge of town there is the Ciudad de Arnedo shopping area (a.k.a. Arnedo shopping factory), an area of shoe shop outlet malls. The boys weren´t that interested, so I only got to go in one shop (I´ll have to go back alone) but it seemed like there were some pretty good bargains to be had here. You can find a list of the stores here on the Town Hall website. Incidentally, this wasn´t a self-contained shopping village. It was just streets with different factory outlets, with random road-side parking. You can see a map of the shops here.
Playground
As any parent of young-uns knows, when you travel you always need to find a playground. Our favourite, which we visited after lunch, was in Parque de los Tubos. which had a quiet playground with some really cool slides. That is all.
Where we stayed
Ibis styles Arnedo
Like I said in the intro, the reason we came here was to stay in the Ibis styles. They´re usually pretty snazzy hotels, slightly nicer than the normal Ibis or Ibis budget – and on the website this one looked lovely.
It wasn´t a bad hotel. The staff were friendly, the bar / restaurant was good and the breakfast was wonderful – but the room wasn´t quite as nice as we were expecting. The bathroom was a little worn and our room overlooked a lot of pipes. The room was comfy and fine, but not as designed as those we had seen on the website and we were anticipating. It seems like this was an independent hotel which joined the Ibis franchise, and there are still remnants of the old hotel.
I paid £100 for bed and breakfast for one night.
all.accor.com/hotel/8523/index.en.shtml
Useful links
www.tripadvisor.com/Attractions-g1099740-Activities-Arnedo_La_Rioja.html
www.spain.info/en/destination/arnedo/
This one has some good restaurant recommendations: lariojaturismo.com/poblacion/arnedo
Disclaimer
Please note, some of this information may not be correct, or may be out of date. All these articles show is how we found these places when we visited and what we personally thought of each place. Where possible I will include links to sites which contain more up-to-date information. All of this is our own work and any opinion expressed is that of the author only.
All photos copyright of J Clemo-Halpenny, unless otherwise stated. If you would like to copy or reproduce any of these images, please email me to ask permission.
What I did on my Holiday 