Igea

The ridge above Igea looks ordinary enough – sun-baked earth, thyme scrub, the odd farmhouse – until the eye adjusts to the stone. Then the prints appear: three-toed wedges the size of dinner plates marching diagonally across a tilted slab. They are 120 million years old, pressed into mud when this was the edge of a tropical lake and the word “Rioja” meant nothing at all.

Igea sits 650 m above sea level on the southern lip of the Ebro basin, a forty-minute spin south-east of Logroño. Summers are steppe-hot; winters bring the Cierzo wind that can shave five degrees off the forecast. The village itself is a single-storey grid of ochre houses, big enough for a pharmacy and two cafés, small enough that the weekly fruit van honks its horn instead of parking. Most visitors come only for the morning, which is sensible: the real attraction begins where the tarmac ends.

Reading rock instead of road signs

Start at the Centro de Interpretación Paleontológica on the edge of town. Entry is free, the panels are in Spanish only, but the fossil casts speak for themselves: crocodile armour, fern fronds, a sauropod femur taller than most children. Staff will lend you a laminated route map and stress two things – take water, and do not step on the darker stone. That darker stone is the track surface.

The signed Ruta de las Icnitas loops 4 km through three separate outcrops. The closest, La Virgen del Campo, is a five-minute drive up a gravel track passable to anything except low-slung hire cars. From the gate it is a ten-minute walk to the first shelf of grey limestone where theropod prints overlap like badly parked cars. A second layer, tilted almost vertical, carries a line of wider, flatter sauropod pes marks – the rear feet of an animal longer than a double-decker bus. Panels give the science; the silence gives the scale. Allow an hour here if you are the sort who crouches to feel the ridges with your palm.

The other sites require more shoe leather. Sendero de los Cien Pies climbs 150 m to a sandstone bench littered with ripple marks and solitary digits. The gradient is gentle but the path is loose; trainers are borderline, walking shoes better. Mountain-bikers sometimes appear, tyres crunching like breakfast cereal, yet the tracks are too rough for a pleasant ride unless you enjoy pushing.

When the wind blows from the Moncayo

Spring and autumn are the kindest seasons. April brings white asparagus from kitchen gardens and the first house martins. October turns the surrounding cereal plots the colour of burnt toast and the light soft enough for photography without filters. Mid-July, by contrast, is brutal: 35 °C by eleven o’clock, rattlesnake grass the only green thing left, and the rocks hot enough to sting through denim. If that is when your holiday falls, aim for 08:00, bring two litres of water per person, and plan to be back in the shade before the church bell strikes twelve.

Winter can be magical – crisp air, empty paths, the prints sharp with frost – or simply miserable. A north-easterly can roll fog off the Moncayo range, reducing visibility to ten metres and turning the shale into a slide. On those days the centre stays open but the car park is empty; locals retreat to the bar for a game of mus and a glass of the young red that never quite acquired an English name.

Beyond the footprints

Back in the village the 16th-century church of San Martín de Tours keeps odd hours: open for mass at 11:30 on Sunday and whenever the sacristan feels like it the rest of the week. If the wooden door is ajar, slip inside. The Gothic vault is painted white, the better to reflect the sun that pours through the oculus, and the retablo hides a tiny Roman votive stone discovered during restoration – a reminder that people have been marking divinity here for a long time.

Below the main square, a lane drops past abandoned wine caves. Before phylloxera these tunnels stored 200,000 litres; now their entrances gape like black mouths among the brambles. One or two have been patched up as private cellars, distinguishable by the smell of oak and the faint throb of a cooling unit. There is no formal tour, but if an owner is outside polishing his car he will often lift the padlock for strangers – Spaniards first, foreigners second, dogs always.

For lunch you have two choices. Casa Chato on Calle Mayor does a three-course menú del día for €14 mid-week: garlic soup, roast lamb, and a half-bottle of crianza that punches above its weight. Alternatively, drive five minutes to the hamlet of Yerga and the roadside Venta de San Torcuato where chuletón de buey is grilled over vine cuttings and served with potatoes wrinkled by salt. Book at weekends; Riojan families arrive in convoy at 14:00 sharp and the fire shuts at four.

The bits nobody photographs

There is no cashpoint. The nearest petrol is in Cervera, 9 km back towards the motorway. Phone signal drops to Edge between the second and third outcrop, so screenshot your map. And while the village is quiet, it is not undiscovered: coaches of schoolchildren turn up most Tuesdays between March and May, their teachers wielding laminated checklists like riot shields. If you meet them at La Virgen, retreat to the higher track; the prints will still be there when the chatter fades.

Evening brings swifts and the smell of charcoal, but little else. Igea rolls up the pavement early; the last beer is served around 21:30 and the square empties by ten. Stay the night only if you relish starlight and the distant bark of a guard dog. There are two guest rooms above the bakery, both clean, both €45 with shared bathroom, and a rural cottage in the old schoolhouse that sleeps six – handy for families, overkill for couples. Otherwise Logroño’s hotels and pinchos circuit lie 45 minutes away on a road so straight it could have been laid out by a Roman with a hangover.

Getting it right

Drive: take the N-232 towards Soria, exit at Cervera, follow the LR-287 for 9 km. Public transport is a non-starter – the weekday bus from Logroño reaches Cervera at 08:00 and turns straight back. Pack: 500 ml of water per hour in summer, sunhat with neck flap, shoes that grip. Do not expect: souvenir shops, audio guides, or a single dinosaur skeleton. Do anticipate: an hour when the only sound is your own breathing and the squeak of boot rubber on Jurassic limestone, followed by a cold beer under a plane tree while the church clock strikes three and a tractor grumbles home.

That is enough. Anything more would be garnish.