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ALAVA - Tourisme
> Red gold, the miracle of the vine
The most southerly district of Álava, la Rioja Alavesa, is a peculiar land, which runs down from the mountain ranges of Toloño and Cantabria as far as the river Ebro.
On our journey we will encounter signs of its Neolithic inhabitants, Roman settlements, Romanesque chapels, forests of oak and beech, mountains and plains, villages brimming with history perched upon the sides of hills, red soils that appear to lend their colour to the superb red wine that emanates from their very essence, bodegas whose cellars hold bottles of wine that are over a century old, at the same time as they boast buildings designed by today’s foremost architects, age-old traditions in an area that for centuries has been a frontier land, assimilating the best of each culture it has coexisted with, a cuisine that can only be compared to the wine produced by the local grapes, with tempranillo and garnacha revealing the strongest personalities.
A list of places to visit would be almost endless: bodegas, megalithic monuments, tiny chapels and the imposing churches in small villages that reflect centuries of prosperity, an exuberance of nature that seems to keep some of its best back for each one of the four seasons.