Sunday, March 4, 2012 - We are out of the apt with the car packed by 9:15. It takes a bit to get out of our neighborhood, because where Navi wants to take us, the road is closed due to the weekly market. After a couple of detours, we find our way around the closed off streets and soon we’re on the main route we had come in on when we traveled here from Porto. About 80 km west of Madrid, we leave last week’s route to head north to today’s destination near Monforte de Lemos in the Galicia province.
We again travel through cattle grazing land and some crops, then on to fruit trees and last vineyards. Once we leave the main autoroute nearer to our destination the landscape becomes more mountainous and less populated. There are lots of hills/small mountains covered by trees. The soil is quite orange/red and some of the rock too. Today was another very enjoyable drive that took us about 5.5 hours to reach our destination. We manage to find our next accommodation, Campo Verde, in a tiny village (about 5 homes) along some narrow country lanes. Good thing the directions are precise, because this place would have been brutal to find otherwise!
The place is wonderful. It is a stone farm building totally renovated and beautifully refurbished.
We were well prepped with groceries, good thing as we’re out in the middle of “no where” (obviously written by T as the nearest town is only about 4 km away, so we are actually a long way from the ‘middle’ of no where). The owners were kind to leave some staples for us, which added to our stuff we have more than our typical Sunday evening dinner and Monday morning breakfast. We settle in, T makes a nice dinner while M and J check out the satellite TV programmed for UK channels. Power availability out in this rural part is limited and so we quickly found that we couldn’t use the stove while the heaters were on, tripping the breakers twice before dinner was ready. We were going to need to limit the number of electrical things on at one time. We find an old Clint Eastwood movie on TV that is fine entertainment for the evening.
Monday, March 5, 2012 – This morning the owners of Campo Verde, Craig and Melanie, stopped by to collect our rent and chat. We had a great conversation, learning all kinds of things. They moved here from the UK and have lived in the area for about 10 years, semi-retired. We learned about the life style of the people in this region. People speak a different dialect here than anywhere else in Spain. Family and family time is most important to people in this area (and perhaps more of Spain). The mid day meal, during siesta time, has the extended family eating together, often including grandparents. People have no interest in working on weekends (even if offered double or more) as that would take time away from the family – something that many North Americans have forgotten. Here it’s still very much a cash society, with people of different skills paying each other (or doing work trades) versus using banks or credit cards. Even though unemployment is at 23% they’re not that worried in this rural part as its about 10% in good times, and many work for cash only so stats may be pessimistic (we heard once again, that like in Greece and Italy, avoiding taxes is a national pastime). Our accommodation was an abandoned building that they picked up for a song. Through careful reconstruction, they have created a great little hideaway with the only big surprise was the need to drill a 200 m deep well.
Today we hung out, got familiar with the village and the nearest town, Montforte de Lemos as we decided to go in and pick up groceries for much of the week. Here we found a good size grocery store with lots to choose from, so we pick up some different things for dinner that we haven’t had lately.
Once we’re back and things stowed away, J continued with schoolwork while we went walking. What a dichotomy from last week! This area is the complete opposite of last. Here we are in the middle of rural Spain, far removed from city life. Our neighbors have a flock of sheep wandering their yard today!
No satellite dishes (except for our accommodation). We went for a walk along the road, it took us by several small farm holdings. Often the fields were separated by rock walls build long ago. We checked out a field planted and mature. It was some kind of root vegetable – a cross between a carrot, parsnip or turnip. It was white in color. We’d had eaten it earlier in the week. It was very pleasant to walk along the rural tree lined road. Many of the trees were covered in lichen adding to the charm of the old rock piled farm homes, buildings and walls. Our little village/settlement has the buildings fairly close together, with narrow walkways amongst the buildings made likely of granite and had clay tiled roofs. We end the day watching another old Clint Eastwood WWII movie.
Tuesday, March 6, 2012 – M and T go to town to find our coffee stop for the week. It’s a café that has WiFi so we will be back several times this week. We’re off to explore some of the area around here. There is a booklet in the house suggesting some ‘out of the way’ drives and we decide to check one out. Our drive takes near Monforte and then east up into the hills/mountains. After we drive along a fairly winding road for 12 km, we leave this paved road to take a little lane leading us to a parking lot. We walked about 600 m and arrived at the miradoiro Pena de Castelo. What an amazing view from this small chapel built into the mountainside, overlooking the Sil River canyon. Below and beyond us we see terraced vineyards. The number of terraces and the amount of effort to achieve this is mind boggling.
We left here and continued along a road that took us down one side of the Sil River, crossing it and then proceeding up the other side. Driving right through some of these terraced vineyards we got an up close view of the generations of work that went into these vineyards. Our drive takes us past many switch-backs, through small villages, along roads with individual farms. It’s a great drive to see this part of Spain.
Wednesday, March 7, 2012 – It’s misty out with the odd sprinkle. We hang out and go to the local café for our coffee and to use their WiFi and M gets a blog posting done. Other than a workout and J doing homework it’s a lazy day all in all, enjoying reading, music, and hanging out.
Thursday, March 8, 2012 – We are located outside of the village Escalion, population likely under 500 people. There is a main street where various services are located. We found the panaderia to by a loaf of wonderful thick-crusted bread. Boy the Europeans know how to make the bread!! We also had to stop at the local hardware store to pick up some science supplies so J can do his experiments. The store is a conglomeration of appliances, hardware supplies, kitchenware and other household supplies. M did manage, with the help of our Iphone translator, to find what we needed.
This afternoon it’s around 19 C so M and T went for another great drive exploring the countryside around here (J said he would do school work and just hang out). We drove along country roads, through a few villages, passing vineyards terraced similar to Tuesday’s drive this time along the Minho River.
We have also seen these really cool shaped trees in this part of Spain and northern Portugal - we do not know how they get the limbs to grow together to make this shape but its neat to see.
As we drive along the river we realize that we have found a very isolated area of the region and wonder what it must be like to live here now and especially years ago when we would be well over a day away from the nearest village by horse. We pass several hydroelectric dams and some pretty sights high overlooking the river valley below. On our drive we pass this really cool shaped bridge (we note that we have seen many more architecturally beautiful designs here in Europe than we see at home).
We enjoyed a nice meal, T has become proficient in being able to cook without blowing the breaker and sending M downstairs with his trusty headlamp to find the reset switch. Another skill learned on this trip…
Friday, March 9, 2012 – It’s warmer today at 21 C and the skies are again clear. It’s a beautiful day for a drive to explore further. We drove about 120 km to the village Tui, it is just across the river Minho from Valenca Portugal – very near to the Atlantic Coast. This town was first inhabited during the conflict between the Moors and the Christians during the mid 700’s AD. There was a small historic centre with the typical narrow streets and pedestrian only area.
We realize that when we drove up to Braga a couple of weeks ago, we weren’t too far from the Spanish border.
We left Tui to drive to the Atlantic coastal town of Baiona. It has a neat medieval centre with narrow streets. We found a wonderful spot to have lunch at a café in the old section. There was the fortress Monterreal positioned to protect the bay. This was where Columbus’ Pinta landed on March 1, 1493 announcing the discovery of the New World. There is a replica of the ship in the harbor and during the summer one can tour. This town was pillaged by Englishman Francis Drake in the late 1500’s. He was finally dealt by soldiers and navy sent by King Phillip II of Spain.
Although we notice the replica of the ship we see there re also a few newer boats in the marina.
After a walk around the fortress area and harbor, we were off northeast to Santiago de Compostale. This city is a pilgrimage destination for Christians 3rd in line after Rome and Jerusalem, especially in the medieval times. They say the remains of the apostle St. James are buried here. Legend holds that St. James’s remains were carried by boat from Jerusalem to Northern Spain where he was buried on the site of what is now the city of Santiago de Compostela (the cathedral). Pilgrimages were done as a way of retracing the Master’s steps, it was also used as punishment for crimes committed. Today people continue to walk the El Camino de Santiago from France winding their way across the Pyrenees across Spain to here.
We found our way through the city to a parking spot near the Franscican Convent.
There are a number of beautiful buildings dating back several hundred years.
The cathedral is beautiful and an awesome sight as we come into the courtyard.
There is the bishop’s palace, San Jeronimo’s College and the Hotel De Los Reyes Catolicos built by Isabelle and Ferdinand to operate as a hostel for pilgrims. Now it is a 5 star hotel, supposedly one of Europe’s finest. All the buildings are built from granite.
We spend about a half hour wondering through the church, walking through the aisles, admiring the impressive pipe organ, the incredible ornate altar, see St. James’ tomb, and check out a number of other altars. This church has an enormous incense burner, botafumeiro, suspended from the transept dome keystone. On special feast days a half dozen men are said to cling desperately to the other end of the rope to swing it above the congregation and all the way up to the eaves. Now, we saw the incense burner and how far down it is hung. It must be quite the sight to see them pull and swing it back and forth!
Our drive back to the house is just over an hour, so we take yet another new route. Again we travel through rural farm area as well as some decent-sized towns. T creates another great meal and we find some pro soccer on TV to end the day.
Saturday, March 10, 2012 – Another beautiful day to enjoy the outdoors. We decided on a laid back day to get organized for our departure tomorrow. The birds were chirping and the sun shining, we were thinking that the leaves aren’t long from budding and coming out here. We’ve seen some trees full of pink blossoms and some full of white. We also saw some tall trees ablaze with yellow blossoms, adding some great color contrast, but we haven’t any idea what they are called. We go to the store to get enough groceries for the first day or so in our next spot. We spent some of the afternoon lounging on chaise loungers and enjoying being outside in the sunshine, pack-up for tomorrow’s drive, and lounge for the evening.
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