Walking across town with a two dog escort.

Unfortunately, we woke to heavy rain and thunderstorms on our first day in Mendoza.  This is the one place I thought we would have clear, sunny weather, and it didn’t happen.  It ended up raining heavily for most of the day.

Clos de Chacras winery

Still, you can’t waste a day sitting around, so after breakfast we walked the 30 minutes across Chacras de Coria to the Clos de Chacras winery, accompanied the entire walk and up to the winery front door by two very friendly street dogs.

Clos de Chacras restaurant

We had a very good lunch, tasted a Malbec, a Cabernet, and a blend (I liked the blend), and then toured the facilities.  The tour guide was very good and quite enthusiastic.

After lunch we took a taxi downtown to tour the beautiful plazas we had read about.  It continued to rain, and as we slogged around downtown we became more and more cold, wet, and miserable.  We escaped for a bit with a stop in a coffee shop, but still managed a walk around Plaza Espania.  It was lovely, and would have been stunning if the sun had been shining.

Plaza Espania, Mendoza

At that point we were just killing time until dinner.  We had reservations at one of the top restaurants in all of South America, Restaurant 1884.  Our reservations were for 9 pm, the early bird dinner time.  Most Argentinians do not even consider dinner before 9 pm, and things really start to heat up by 11 pm.

http://1884restaurante.com.ar/

At least the dinner was worth the wait.  It was a lovely bodega and a wonderful meal.  My sister thought it the best bottle of wine we had tried yet, a 2009 Escorihuela Gran Reserva Malbec.

1884 Retaurante, Mendoza

Inside 1884 Restaurante

My sister looks over the menu at 1884 Restaurante