This region is one of our faves in the whole of Spain! Check it out...
Day 39 (Monday May 5 08)
We drove in to town. stopping off for some supplies at the local supermarket and stocking up on local produce. We headed to the next fishing town, Ribadesella. On route we got told to pull over by the Police. We got caught up in the big bike race and moments after pulling over, hundreds of bikes passed us at lightning speed, followed by their massive road crew. Check out the photos!! 
Talk about a perfect place for a photo! Right up front of the action! After this short lived excitement we were back on the road
We drove to Ribadesella and walked around the marina. We had a picnic lunch at the mouth of the marina. The weather was pretty grey and London looking. We would be left wondering how beautiful this town would be in 
the sunshine. It has gorgeous mountains as a backdrop and a lovely marina with lots of different coloured houses surrounding it. It was a very restful and peaceful way to kill a couple of hours. Seeing the boats coming in with their daily catch is becoming quite a regular occurrence. It was siesta so the town was dead quiet, but suited us just fine!
From here, Nat had a driving lesson. First time she’d driven a car since October 2006! 
But first time ever to drive on the right hand side of the road! Very scary stuff! We drove through the mountains and stopped for a beer in a town called ‘Cangas de Onis’. It has a really old Roman bridge that is really high over the river. We sat by the river, looking at the bridge and enjoyed a beer and ice cream. Cam took over the driving back through the hairy local roads back to our little place. The drive was absolutely gorgeous. The mountains were surrounded in mist, but were spectacular.
On our return, Cam watched crap Spanish tv, while Nat had an early night.
Day 40 6/05
In the morning we checked out of our lovely hotel and headed back in to
Llanes. There are these big cement blocks that have been decorated by a Bilbao artist in lots of funky colours and patterns. Elaborately called ‘Cubes of Memory!’ We enjoyed some sunshine sitting on the sea wall checking out the blocks and the local fishing boats pulling in with their daily catch. A fair drive today, so we headed on route West. Nat drove on the motorway today. Quite scary for her, since the Spanish drive so fast! 120 km/h is slow here.
We stopped in a town called Lugo to break up the drive. We sat in the main square and did what all the locals do. People watch! They sit in the 
main square, doing nothing but watch other people walking by! Its amazing! They 
don’t read books or listen to iPods, they just sit and do nothing! I couldn’t imagine that ever happening in London! There is always somewhere to be or someone to call!
After sampling local Galician beer (not a bad drop, shame you can't get it elsewhere), we got back on the road into Galicia. Our rather unhelpful GPS didn’t have the road our hotel was on. We drove around for quite a while trying to locate it! Its pretty much brand new and so is the area, so its no wonder the GPS couldn’t locate it! The hotel is only about 7km from A Coruna. Its very well decorated and clean, but lacks atmosphere. The guy on reception was really helpful though, he provided us with maps of the local cities and information on where to go and park. The first place in a long time that the reception could speak fluent English, let alone give good information! We had a short rest and then decided to head out for dinner.
The local village had very few restaurants and the ones there were rather empty, we didn’t want to risk it, the prices weren’t cheap enough to have a disappointing meal. We decided to go to A Coruna, which was a rather bad idea, since we had no idea where to go and had no map! Hence yes we got lost, there is a massive ramp which joins about 5 motorways together, so it wasn’t hard to get lost. We found our way back, via a service station, well we needed fuel anyway! We got back to our hotel and had dinner there.
It was really late by this stage, so we were very grateful to be served a full dinner at that time of evening. The meal wasn’t too bad, 3 courses and it included a bottle of wine at only 10 euros each! Awesome! We pretty much crawled straight in to bed after!
Day 41
We ate our cereal in our room and headed to the 
cafe downstairs for a morning coffee. The lady was very friendly and made a lovely cafe cortado (Spanish macchiatto). Our Spanish favourite, an espresso coffee with a dash of milk. We headed to a town called Laxe.
Unfortunately the weather wasn’t very nice to us, it was quite grey and looked like it was going to rain. We bought a few things at the local supermercado for a picnic later. We then went to another town called Malpica, a very sleepy little town. It had the steepest hill we’ve ever seen! A narrow little road too! Cam went off-road up a gravel track which had stunning views of the rugged coastline. From here we headed to another beach called Praia de Razo, on the Coste de Morte (Coast of Death), which had a lovely long white sandy beach. This part of the coastline has had many shipwrecks over the years hence the name. There is some great surfing here at your own risk!
We sat down near the rocks and had our picnic lunch. It felt just like where Cam and I enjoy taking 
Chloe to the beach in Quinns Rock back home! The weather was threatening rain, but we had enough time to enjoy our lunch and a quick beer before the rain came! It was a gorgeous place, it was such a shame about the 
weather. From here we headed to A Coruna.This is pretty much the capital of Galicia and a major centre in the area. The lighthouse was one of the main tourist attractions. It was an old Roman lighthouse, said to be one of the oldest in Europe. When we got to it, we found it was one of the ugliest lighthouses we’ve ever seen! It was square and ugly poo brown!
We left the car and headed on foot in to the old town. It wasn’t the nicest 
town we’ve been to, but the weather didn’t really help. It was cool and rained later in the day. This picture shows that the front of the patios all have glass covering them. It is famously known as the "Crystal street" because of this.
We had trouble locating the restaurant strip, but once we found it, we weren’t disappointed. We met an Irish lady and her 
Scottish husband having dinner with their young kids. They were really lovely and it was so nice to have conversation in English! We hadn’t encountered anyone speaking English for about a week! Cam and I lashed out and had an amazing seafood platter with prawns, big fish, little fish langoustines and squid. It was sooooooo good! They aren’t wrong about Galicia being famous for its seafood! After dinner we strolled back to the car and headed home thoroughly satisfied with our seafood dinner!
Day 42
Today we headed further south in Galicia to Cangas. En-route we stopped at the lovely town of Santiago de Compestela. Its the town where the Camigo de Santiago finished. We went to the local market which was full of luscious looking fruits and vegetables. A selection of fish and meat and cheese etc. Really
nice!
We bought some supplies and walked around the lovely town. We had tapas in a nice cafe next to the university cheap and fresh. The cathedral was quite spectacular outside but not as amazing as the inside and it was free! In the square there is many backpackers celebrating . Those who have finished the pilgrims trail (St James' way or Camino de Santiago). We walked around a bit admiring this beautiful city, but had to get on the road to Cangas. Lucky we left when we did, cause as soon as we got in the car and shut the door, it absolutely pissed down with rain!
The journey to Cangas was very picturesque. The countryside was so green and luscious. Many fields of grape vines and market gardens. Many local wines for sale on the side of the road, which this region is famous for. (Temporillo). We arrived in Cangas without having booked accommodation. Luckily the lady in the tourist office was very helpful and booked us in to an apartment not far out of town. We were really happy to find out apartment was only about 20 metres to the sea! The apartment itself was a little bit rough around the edges, but it had a
proper kitchen with an oven and a good size fridge! Woo hoo! We could cook dinner and keep some food and drinks in the fridge! We headed to the supermarket to stock up on supplies and came back and Cam cooked up a lovely stir fry. So good to have home cooked food!
We had so much washing to do, having been on the road for over 6 weeks and hand washing most of the time our clothes were desperate for a good wash! The washing machine struggled a fair bit, but we eventually got it working! Cam watched a few episodes of Family Guy and Nat had her head in a good book until the eyes were closed.
Day 43
We woke up to a lovely morning. Had a quick coffee and some cereal 
before heading straight in to town for bread. We had forgotten that the local market is on Fridays. We were pleasantly surprised! This is one of the best markets we’ve ever seen! Such an amazing selection of things. Not just super fresh fruit and veges from local growers, but local seafood, meat, a massive choice of hand bags, shoes, socks, clothes. It really was awesome! We walked around for a fair while taking it all in! We got some lovely food and headed back to our apartment. We spent the afternoon enjoying the sun and enjoying our fresh food, with the music cranking and the sun shining on our patio and out on the beach. Cam was enjoying a day off from driving and had more than his fair share of beers/cider/wine/port! What a mix! With a drunken dash into the sea couldn't be better! We cooked up grilled zucchini and eggplant. Absolutely divine! For main course Cam cooked a really nice t-bone steak that we had purchased at the markets earlier with some steamed broccoli and carrots. So good! Sometimes simple is often the best. After all the sun (and the few drinks), we called it a night not long after the steak!
Today would be our last day in Spain for a couple of weeks as we head south into Portugal for some touring down the coast. Stay tuned for Portugal!
Cam & Nat
1 comment:
Interesting post.
Cough Medicine
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