Enciso

The first thing you notice is the silence, broken only by gravel crunching under hire-car tyres. Then the landscape tilts upwards—ochre scarps, knife-edge ridges, almond trees clinging to cracks in the rock—and you realise why film crews use this corner of La Rioja as a stand-in for the American West. Enciso sits at the eastern lip of the province, 45 minutes from Logroño and barely ten from Aragón. Red-earth badlands sweep right to the village edge; beyond them, the cereal plateau begins. It looks arid, almost lunar, until you spot the discreet wooden sign: “Huellas de Dinosaurio, 400 m”.

Footprints older than the Pyrenees

Roughly 120 million years ago, while the Atlantic was still opening, sauropods and theropods padded across tidal flats here. The mud set like cement, tectonics lifted it, and erosion peeled away the upper layers. Result: more than 3,000 dinosaur tracks scattered over a dozen sites, most of them reachable on foot from the church square. Before you dash out, call at the Centro Paleontológico on the main road. The exhibition fits into two rooms and a corridor, but it decodes what you are about to see: three-toed theropod prints the size of bathroom slippers; metre-wide sauropod “elephant-pancake” depressions; tail-drag marks that look like someone drew a stick through wet sand. Entry is €4, under-12s free, and the staff hand out a simple map marking three loops ranging from 20 minutes to two hours.

The shortest signed walk leads to Virgen del Campo, five minutes past the last house. A steel platform hangs over the slope so visitors can hover above a quarry-face of tracks without scuffing them with flip-flops. Mid-morning light rakes across the stone and the prints jump into relief—like watching a photograph develop in a darkroom. Serious enthusiasts carry on to Valdecevillo, where a 200-metre catwalk snakes above a cascade of footprints running vertically up a cliff. The rock was once horizontal; the cliff is the hinge of an upturned slab. Geology made simple, no degree required.

A village that keeps Spanish hours, barely

Enciso’s permanent population hovers around 170. Stone houses are roofed with curved Roman tiles; many still have the family name chiselled above the door. There is one food shop, one bakery and a bar that doubles as the social centre. Opening times obey mood and season. If the metal shutter is down at 11 a.m., wander five minutes and try again after the baker has finished his coffee. The 16th-century church of San Pedro hides a retablo gilded with American gold; the door is usually unlocked, but bring a coin for the lights or you will squint in the gloom.

Afternoons evaporate quickly. By two o’clock the only movement is a pair of white-haired men manoeuvring dominoes onto an outdoor table. Enciso does not do souvenir overload—no fridge-magnet emporia, no life-size plastic T-rex photo-op. What it offers instead is sound-track: hoopoes in the almond groves, the soft clap of irrigation water, wind scraping through juniper on the bluff. Writers and water-colourists base themselves here for that reason; phone signal is patchy enough to discourage doom-scrolling.

Walking the empty quarter

If footprints aren’t enough exercise, two way-marked footpaths climb out of the badlands onto the mesa. PR-LE-13 follows a centuries-old grain mule track to the abandoned village of Navalsaz, 6 km away. You gain 350 m of elevation, enough to see the Ebro valley shimmer in the heat haze and, on clear days, the snow-topped Moncayo 100 km south-east. Take at least a litre of water per person; shade is limited to two stone huts and a single holm-oak. The return loop cuts down a barranco where griffon vultures ride thermals at eye level—bring binoculars.

Summer walks are best finished by 11 a.m.; the rock reflects heat like a pizza oven. Spring is kinder, with wild tulips and the smell of thyme underfoot. Winter can be sharp—night frosts are common—but the low sun turns the cliffs blood-orange and you will have the trails to yourself. After rain, clay sections become skating rinks; lightweight walking boots with tread are safer than trainers.

Where to eat and sleep, or not

Enciso has no hotel, only two rural houses that sleep six each and book out early at weekends. Most visitors base themselves in Arnedo (25 min by car) where chain hotels start at €55 a night, or in Arnedillo whose thermal pools offer the best post-walk soak in the region—€9 for two hours in the outdoor pool, steam rising against limestone cliffs. Lunch in Enciso itself means either the bar (toasted sandwiches, tortilla, ice-cold caña beer) or Casa Ramón in neighbouring Arnedo. Their chuletón—a T-bone hacked from an 800-gram steak—arrives sizzling on a ceramic tile, served with hand-cut chips and a bottle of young Rioja. Vegetarians get patatas a la riojana, a paprika-heavy stew that tastes like Spanish cottage pie. Finish with an almond tart from the Enciso bakery; it travels well if you are catching the evening ferry back to Portsmouth from Santander, two and a half hours north.

Timing and truth

Two hours covers the museum and the nearest footprint site; half a day lets you add a decent walk and a relaxed lunch. Trying to stretch the visit into a full holiday quickly feels like padding. Enciso works best as a single act in a wider Rioja itinerary: bounce here from the wine cellars of Haro in the morning, combine with the hot springs at Arnedillo, then drop south to the monasteries of Soria. Sunday lunchtime everything shuts; the bakery may sell out of almond tarts by 11 a.m. There is no cash machine—stock up in Arnedo before you arrive. English is patchy; download a Spanish dinosaur glossary and you will earn appreciative shrugs from the guides.

Come expecting Jurassic Park and you will leave disappointed. The footprints are subtle: oval hollows, slight ridges, the occasional claw mark. What sticks in the mind is the setting—wind-scoured cliffs, a village that still belongs to its residents, the quiet realisation that you are walking across the same silt a 30-tonne giant crossed twice a day in search of water. Enciso does not shout; it simply lets the stones speak.