I have spent the past month or so exploring Nájera, Spain. Have you heard of Nájera? If not, I’m not super surprised. Heck most people outside of Spain haven’t even heard of La Rioja, the region it’s located in. I would have never come to this town if it hadn’t been for a recent life change.
Those of you who read the blog regularly or follow me on social media know that I moved to Granada, Spain two years ago. You all probably also know that I love Granada. If you’ve been, you understand why. If not, you can probably tell from pictures why I love that city. However my teaching program only lets us live in the Andalucía region for two years. So I looked at that as an opportunity to move to a different region and see what Spanish life is like somewhere else.
Why La Rioja?
That’s an excellent question! It is a smaller and less-known region, after all. One of the best things in life are personal references. I find that they often speak louder than anything. I happen to have a friend who lived in this region as an English teacher about four or so years ago. He has nothing but good things to say about his year here. So I figured “why not try La Rioja?” I’ll also plug said friend’s business here.
I wanted to be in a region small enough that I could commute from a big city. I wanted Spanish to be the only language (as opposed to regions like the Basque Country and Catalonia). I also really like wine. Did you know that La Rioja is famous for wine?
I went from living in the biggest region (land-wise) to living in the smallest one.
Then I decided to live in a pueblo
This is me exploring Nájera one lovely September morning. So how did I end up here? After all, I chose La Rioja so I could commute from the city! Well here’s how …
As most of you can guess, I don’t earn millions as an English teacher. Furthermore, a move always takes more money than we think. In Spain, it usually takes a few days to a week to find a flat (unless you’re in Madrid in which it takes a month at least). So my original idea was to find somewhere to stay for free while I search for a flat. You’re probably wondering how one finds a free place to stay. Well there are several ways but the one I knew about was Work Away.
Work Away is a place where you can find work exchanges. Nothing in life is ever really free of course. The idea with Work Away is that you volunteer in exchange for food and housing. There are all kinds of people from all over the world looking for people to come volunteer. So I thought I would see what I could find for the month of September. Since school doesn’t start until October, I would have time to do some volunteer work.
I joined the website and started messaging different families in La Rioja. Luck would have it that I found a family who lives in the same pueblo as the school I was assigned to work at. In our initial messages, they suggested I live with them the entire school year. Sometimes I feel like the universe points you in certain directions and gives you what you’re looking for. I have been wanting to save up money this year so I can be more free to travel next summer. This opportunity will grant me just that.
So here I am living in and exploring Nájera.
This is my commute to work. I love that I can walk there in less than 15 minutes. That is definitely one plus about living in the same pueblo as your school.
Is it worth exploring Nájera?
In short, absolutely! While this town only has a population of 7,000 people, it has visitors daily. It’s one of the stops on the Camino de Santiago, so you often see people with backpacks and hiking gear. There are several spots in town where people on the camino can stay and restaurants that offer special discounts.
There’s a river that divides the town. The view of the town with the mountain behind it is absolutely breathtaking. I did climb one of the mountains, but I still need to climb up to where the cross is.
Monasterio de Santa María La Real
There’s also a monastery in Nájera and it only costs 4€ to visit! One morning a friend of mine and I visited it. If you download their free app, you can access an audio tour of the place as well!
Want to spend a day here?
I would definitely recommend exploring Nájera for a day trip from Logroño. It’s a half an hour away and there are multiple buses everyday. In fact, both Jimenez and Riojacar run daily buses between Logroño and Nájera. Jimenez even has an app where you can look at the schedules. I would recommend buying your ticket in person as it’s cheaper than buying it on the app.
Would you want to spend a day here?
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