Since
my first luncheon at El Torreón with Mariano García,
I have returned numerous times,
perhaps nearly 20, over a period of more than two decades. Tordesillas,
located 183 kilometers (less than two hours northwest of Madrid on
autoroute A6, the main route to Galicia) at the northern edge of the
Rueda wine district, just west of Ribera del Duero, east of Toro
and south of Cigales, has become one of my main wine road warrior
stops. I always stay at my home-away-from-home, Hotel Doña Carmen*, a
modest roadside hotel, which is situated just south of the multi-arched
Medieval bridge over the Duero River. I love the Hotel
Doña Carmen, in which I seldom spend more than 10 hours at a time,
enough to answer some e-mails, get into bed, get up, get ready to go,
have a pan tostado con with mantequilla y mermelada and a cafe con leche. But, my familiarity with the place (and its idiocyncracies), plus the idea that it is one of the few hotels in Spain with mosquiteros (mosquito screens, vital next to the river).
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