Be on the Cuesta de los Danzadores for the descent and work out that they are spinning the whole way down

Look at the stilts and the yellow skirts and work out how the costume is meant to work with the spin

Come in July for the Magdalena or in September for the Gracias, which are the two occasions

Walk up to the Ermita de la Magdalena and find the intermittent spring beside it

Work out why this is called the oldest folk tradition in La Rioja

Anguiano's stilt dancers are said to be the oldest folk tradition in La Rioja. Eight men in yellow skirts, on stilts about half a metre high, spin down the Cuesta de los Danzadores — a steep cobbled street running from the church to the Plaza Mayor — rotating the whole way, held up only by momentum, with the crowd packed on both sides. They do it for the Magdalena in July and again at the Gracias in September. It looks impossible and people do get hurt.

Anguiano: Dancing Down a Hill on Stilts

Go up to Suso, dug into the hillside, and find where the Glosas Emilianenses were written in the margin of a Latin text

Work out what the glosses actually are: the earliest written Iberian Romance and the earliest written Basque, on the same page

Find the tomb of the hermit Aemilianus, who died in 574 and around whom the whole thing grew

Go down to Yuso and find out who Gonzalo de Berceo was and why he matters to Spanish literature

Work out why here — a remote valley in La Rioja, and the Spanish language starts in the margin of a book

A monk at Suso, writing notes in the margin of a Latin manuscript, put down the Glosas Emilianenses — the first written texts in Iberian Romance and in Basque. Suso began at the end of the 6th century as a Visigothic community around the tomb of the hermit Aemilianus, who died in 574, and Gonzalo de Berceo, the first Castilian poet known by name, worked here in the 13th century. Suso is the upper monastery, Yuso the large one built below it later. Both were made a UNESCO World Heritage Site on 7 December 1997.

San Millán de la Cogolla: Where Spanish Was First Written Down

Find the cave at the back of the church and work out that the monastery was built onto it, not over it

Walk the royal pantheon and count the kings, queens and infantes in it

Go into the Claustro de los Caballeros, finished in 1517, and look at how thin the stone tracery has been cut

Find out what the king found in the cave in 1044 — an image, a spray of lilies and a bell — and where he himself is buried

Work out what the kingdom of Nájera-Pamplona was and why its royal burials are here

By tradition King García Sánchez III was hunting near Nájera in 1044 when he followed his falcon into a cave and found a small chapel cut in the rock holding an image of the Virgin, a spray of lilies and a bell. The image is called Santa María en la Cueva, the lilies became the monastery's symbol, and the cave is still there at the back of the church. The king was killed at the battle of Atapuerca and buried at the Virgin's feet, inside it. Santa María la Real became the royal pantheon of the kingdom of Nájera-Pamplona, and thirty or so kings, queens and infantes of Navarre, León and Castile are buried in it. The Claustro de los Caballeros was finished in 1517, after the abbey broke from Cluny in 1486, and its tracery is cut extraordinarily thin.

Nájera: The Cave That Became a Royal Pantheon

Climb San Lorenzo at 2,271 metres, the highest point in La Rioja

Ski or walk at Valdezcaray depending on the season

Find the old royal cloth factory buildings and work out why they are in a village this remote

Buy a blanket made in the valley, which is what the wool trade turned into

Walk the beech woods of the Demanda, which are some of the best in the Iberian system

Ezcaray sits in the upper Oja under the Sierra de la Demanda, and it is the one place in La Rioja where the mountains are the point rather than the wine. It had a royal cloth factory in the 18th century, which is why a village this far up a valley has the buildings it has, and the wool trade left a tradition of blanket-making that still runs. Valdezcaray above it is the region's ski area, and in summer the same slopes give the walking, with San Lorenzo at 2,271 metres — the highest point in La Rioja — reachable in a day.

Ezcaray and the Sierra de la Demanda

Go into the cathedral and find the live cock and hen kept in the coop on the wall

Learn the saying and then find out what the story behind it actually is

Find out who Domingo García was and what he built here to make the Camino passable

Climb the free-standing Baroque bell tower, which is separate from the cathedral

Find out why Barcelos in Portugal tells almost exactly the same story about a cockerel

Domingo García built a bridge over the Oja, a hospital and a pilgrim hostel to make this stretch of the Camino passable, and the town is named after him. The story that made it famous is the miracle of the cock and hen: a pilgrim was wrongly accused of theft and hanged, and Domingo proved his innocence by making a roasted hen fly up off the plate. To this day a live cock and hen are kept in a coop inside the cathedral, and the saying runs that in Santo Domingo de la Calzada the hen crowed after it was roasted. Portugal tells almost the same story about the cockerel of Barcelos.

Santo Domingo de la Calzada: The Hen That Crowed After Roasting

Stand back and work out what the three colours of the titanium are meant to represent

Go down into the original cellars of 1858 and find the oldest bottles in the collection

Walk up into Elciego village and look back at the building from the church

Decide for yourself whether it belongs here, which is an argument people in the Rioja Alavesa actually have

Taste the wine, which is the reason any of this exists

Guillermo Hurtado founded Marqués de Riscal at Elciego in 1858 — the oldest winery in Álava — after importing nine thousand French vine cuttings to experiment alongside the Tempranillo and Graciano already here. In 2006 the estate became the Ciudad del Vino, and the building everyone comes for is Frank Gehry's, sandstone under a titanium roof: pink for red wine, gold for the netting on a Riscal bottle, silver for the capsule. It holds a hotel and two restaurants and sits in the middle of the vineyards below the village of Elciego, which has nothing else remotely like it. Whether it belongs there is a live argument in the Rioja Alavesa.

Elciego: Gehry in the Vines

Be in the village for a procession and understand before you go what you are actually going to see

Find out why this survived here when public flagellation was suppressed everywhere else in Spain

Work out what a disciplinante has to be to take part: adult, male, and vouched for by a priest

Climb to the castle and the fortified church on the rock above the Ebro

Work out what the Cofradía de la Santa Vera Cruz is and that it has organised this from the start

At Easter and on a few other days, men in white robes with hoods walk in procession through San Vicente de la Sonsierra scourging their own backs with a rope discipline, and are then pricked to draw the bruising off. It is the only place in Spain where the penance is still practised, it has always been run by the Cofradía de la Santa Vera Cruz, and it was recognised as of National Tourist Interest in 2005. Disciplinantes must be adult, male, and vouched for by a priest as a Christian acting in good faith. The village sits on a rock above the Ebro with a castle and a fortified church.

San Vicente de la Sonsierra: The Picaos

Eat the vegetables — artichokes, borage, cardoon, asparagus, piquillo peppers — which is what the town is for

Come in April for the vegetable fair, which is a serious event here rather than a novelty

Find out who Quintilian and Prudentius were, and that both came from this town

Find out what the Fames Calagurritana was and find the Matrona on the town's arms

Go into the cathedral, which stands outside the old walls rather than inside them

Built on the Vasconic settlement of Kalakorikos, this was Roman Calagurris Nassica Iulia. It became famous for Pompey's siege, in which almost the whole population is recorded as having starved rather than surrender — the Fames Calagurritana, still symbolised on the town's arms by the Matrona. It produced Quintilian, the great teacher of rhetoric, and Prudentius, among the finest Christian poets of antiquity, whose Peristephanon includes hymns to Calahorra's own patrons Emeterius and Celedonius. It is now the vegetable capital of the Ebro, with a cathedral and a vegetable fair in April that the town takes very seriously indeed.

Calahorra: A Roman Town That Ate Itself

Book a guided visit to the Cañaica del Calar or Fuente del Sabuco shelters

Work out what Levantine rock art is and why the 1998 listing covers so many separate sites

Come at Easter for the tamborada, part of the same UNESCO inscription as Hellín's

Drive up into the Sierra de Moratalla, which is among the emptiest country in the south-east

Moratalla is one of the largest municipalities in Spain by area and one of the emptiest, running up into the Sierra de Moratalla in the far north-west of Murcia. Its rock shelters hold Levantine paintings that are part of the Rock Art of the Mediterranean Basin on the Iberian Peninsula, listed by UNESCO in 1998 — the Cañaica del Calar and Fuente del Sabuco among them. The town itself climbs to a castle keep, and the drum festival at Easter is part of the same UNESCO tamboradas inscription as Hellín.