Chacras de Coria

We spent 3 days in Mendoza. Actually we were staying in Chacras de Coria outside of Mendoza of city. When I made the booking I thought it was part of Mendoza city but I have learned that most suburbs are their own town. Mendoza is not exactly what we expected. We had heard all about the wineries and had anticipated something similar to Niagara-on-the-Lake. We were quite wrong. It was a big city. The wineries were pretty far from the city center. We stayed at Acequais Bed and Breakfast. The place had a lot of potential but a lot of little things could have improved our stay. Chacras de Coria ended up being a cute little town with lots of quaint little restaurants to choose from. We wandered through it many time during our stay. The nice part about this town was the proximity to wineries. The draw back was we were far from the city centre and bus terminal.

The first day we ventured into Mendoza city. It was almost an hour ride by local bus which only cost $0.70 CAD! We spent most of the day exploring St. Martins Park. The city didn’t really hold our attention otherwise.

The 2nd day was our favourite. We were able to get one free bike from our hostel and rented a second. There were about 7 wineries within 7 km of our hostel. We spent the day visiting 3 wineries; Alta Vista, Lagrande, Carmello Patti. Of the 3, our favourite was Carmello Patti. They offered a free tasting and we were greeted by Carmello Patti himself. He was charming character and gave a delightful talk in Spanish which I understood very little but was still impressed. We liked it so much we came back later in the day to buy a bottle. Too bad we can’t take a case with us. The weather was really nice today and got up to 17 degrees. We had been expecting warmer temperatures in the mid-twenties but experienced below average temperatures around 10 degrees.

With the low temperatures, we opted to visit a thermal spa on our last day. Getting to the thermal spa was quite a challenge. It involved confusing directions, 2 local buses and some walking. We were also unlucky and had a bus breakdown which added an hour to our travel time. In the end the thermal spa was nice. I especially enjoyed the water slide. We capped of the day with a delicious dinner at El Mercadito in town. It was an amazing deal, a bottle wine, 2 mains and dessert for about $50 CAD.Read more