In the city of Mendoza itself there wasn‘t actually too much too see, because the whole city was destroyed by an earthquake in the 1960ies. Plaza Independencia with its big fountain was quite nice, but that was it.
Main reason why people are coming to Mendoza is because of its wine. The famous Malbec, as well as some others are produced in that region. On my first evening, there was an Asado (the Argentinian BBQ) going on in the hostel. After having Pasta and rice for days this was exactly the thing I was looking for. For the next morning I booked a tour to different wineries in that region. We started at Bodega Dante Robino and got a good introduction to the production and fermenting process of the wine. After that we tasted Malbec and two other wines they were producing. In the meantime the guys from the hostel got our bikes, with which we were riding to the next vineyard. Quite surprised, that I found the Austrian flag hanging in front of the building, they told us later that the owner of this winery, Bodega Norton, was Swarowski, the well known company from Wattens. We had some cheese, ham and bread for lunch and then we had to wait for almost 90 minutes for our tour in the Bodega to start. Highlight of that tour was their museum with old wines. The oldest one dating back to the 1930s.
A short bikeride later we arrived at our planned last stop. They told us, they are already closed and we where supposed to come around 4pm, but is was already after 5, we had to look for a different winery. So we put our bikes back on the Anhänger and jumped on the bus. Some minutes later we arrived at our last stop. They told us that they are producing Malbec – of course – and 40% of all the wine which is used in churches in Argentina. At the end of this rather short tour we also tasted the church wine, but for most of us it was definitely too sweet.
Roundup of this tour was that we got some good information and also most of the wines were great, but in terms of communication and time with the wineries and in terms of the price it was a bit disappointing.
On my last day in Mendoza I organized a bus ticket to my last destination in Argentina and went to see Parque San Martin. A huge park close to the city center with several stadiums, campsite, a big pond and some more…
