La Rioja

The first thing that comes to your mind when you listen La Rioja is probably the wine bearing the same name. It is produced here, in the smallest of Spain's Autonomous Communities, located south of Basque Country at the occidental extreme of Ebro valley.
Haro is the center of wine production, and a well-known folkloristic event is its annual "battle of the wine".
Of major touristic interest is the the Camino de Santiago (Way of Saint James), a part of which leads through La Rioja. The monasteries along that way are not only of high artistic but as well cultural importance, here was written the first text ever in Castilian Spanish.
Along the Way of Saint James there are monumental towns of great beauty lined up: Calahorra, Arnedo, San Millan de la Cogolla, Santo Domingo de la Calzada, and Logroño, founded already by Romans and today the region's capital.
Worth a visit is as well the area Tierra de Cameros, with outstanding landscapes, grottos and caves.
La Rioja offers great possibilities for rural tourism, and if you like hunting, fishing, climbing or hiking it is certainly a place to take into consideration.
Speaking of regional gastronomy, we come back to La Rioja wine, which exists in seven varieties, four of them red and three white. Anyhow one shouldn't forget about another speciality, Pimientos del Piquillo, a delicious and sweet kind of red peppers. Highlights of traditional cooking include lamb, and the marzipan of Sierra de Cameros, of high reputation in all Spain.

Navarra

The history of the ancient kingdom of Navarre always has been marked by its border situation with France, Castile, Aragon and Baskland, and the fact that it is crossed by the pilgrim way Camino de Santiago (Way of Saint James) is an additional reason for its extraordinary monumental richdom. Its beautiful towns, like Artajona which is surrounded by medieval walls, Estella, Olite, formerly seat of Navarre's kings, Tudela and Roncesvalles always are worth a visit.
The region's capital, Pamplona, a quiet and pleasant city, is world-famous for the Running of Bulls which form part of its most famous festival, Sanfermines, in July. Another very peculiar folkloristic attraction are the Navarrese Carnivals with their typical Zanpantzarrak.
Navarre is divided in three sectors: the mountain range of the Pyrenees in the north, with exceptional landscapes as the exemplaric Baztan valley; La Riviera in the south, a plain land with small lagoons and the fertile valley of Ebro river, and, inbetween, la Zona Media, with impressive landscapes and canyons as Hoces de Lumbier and Arbayun.
Navarre has no fewer than 50 natural preseves, most outstanding are Reserva Integral de Lizardoia and Parque Natural de Señorio de Bértiz. It offers great possibilities for hiking, climbing, fishing and is an ideal place if you want to spend green holidays in Spain.