Spain's Best Kept Secret

Since my last blog post, we've left France and continued our journey through Spain to the region of Galicia - where we've been for the last week.

Highlights of that journey included the walled city of Carcassonne, which Milly took great delight in walking around and shouting "Castle!" whilst pointing at anything that looked vaguely stone wall or turret-like.

We also enjoyed our time in San Sebastian - one of Spain's trendy holiday spots on it's north coast, and a bit of a foodie paradise as it's best known for it pintxos bars - similar to the tapas bars your find around the rest of Spain (and the world) - I'll leave the detailed description of them to Claire.

Having left the castles and exotic bar snacks behind us we then travelled inland towards out final long term destination.

As we travelled we started to notice the odd person walking along the roadside. Curious as to why they might be doing this, we consulted our trusty lonely planet to find that we were driving the route of the Camino de Santiago - a 40 day(!) pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela - where the apostle James (look him up) is said to be buried.

Can't say that I'm particularly interested on walking anywhere that is going to take 40 days, but fair play to the literally 100's of people we've seen walking the roads - some in small groups, but many by themselves - I suppose a pilgram has to do what a pilgram has to do?

Nearing the end of our third long drive, we were fast approaching our final long term stop destination. With each stop, we've tried to make sure that they've all been a little different - the first was a beach holiday, the second a city break, and now the third - an old stone cottage in the countryside about 20 minutes from the nearest major city.

On arrival, about 30 minutes later than planned (stupid GPS took us to the wrong side of a river, and then suggested we swam - I hate TOMTOM!), we were greeted by the owner, who didn't speak any English - which combined with our lack of understanding of the Spanish language (I'm limited to being able to order drinks in bars) - meant that the introductions where somewhat awkward.

Once we were settled, we took the time to explore our surroundings. The cottage is on 25,000 square meters of land bordered by a river on one side.

The grounds are planted with various fruit trees, of which I think the owner said we could help ourselves to - we have been anyway - so far we've sampled apples, pears, peaches and grapes - all of which Milly loves.

The owners live down near the river, and there are swings and a trampoline near their house which we are free to use - Milly can't believe her luck being constantly near such fun things as these.

Finally, the owners have a boat and several kayaks - which they have made available for us to use - see above for photographic evidence of Milly and I out on the river.

It's funny, before arriving I was a little apprehensive about coming here for two weeks - the thought of being isolated out in a countryside cottage filled me with a little bit of dread - how was I going to fill my time? But now that we're here, I'm really enjoying the space and sense of privacy - it feels like we've got the whole place to ourselves and we're loving it.

We've now been here just under a week, and having no trouble filling our days by exploring the surrounding towns and villages.

We've been into our nearest town, Pontevedra - where there is a week long festival going on - complete with fun fair rides and side shows - it seems that every other attraction has a Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Donald or Pluto painted on it - so this has proven to be hours of fun for Milly - who walks around shouting "Look Daddy, Mickey!" or similar.

We've also been up to Santiago de Compostela to see what all the fuss is about - it appears that there is quite an impressive church there, which was full of Brazilians when we visited - complete with Brazil flags and drums - you would be forgiven for thinking you were at a football match, expect for all the dudes in robes at the front reading from what was presumably the Bible in Spanish?

We also met up with some friends, who took us down to a walled town called Valença in Portugal for lunch - a lovely fish stew which I'm sure Claire will describe better than I can in her blog.

We'd expected the weather to be terrible when we got here, mostly because people we know from the area had warned us that it wouldn't be good - referring to it as the "Spanish Ireland" - but so far it's been great - the first day it rained, but ever since it starts foggy in the morning but then it clears and temperatures have been around the low 30s every day.

There don't appear to be many other English (or any other nationality) tourists around, in fact we've gone days without encountering anyone else who speaks English.

This hasn't been a problem though - the locals almost seem apologetic that they don't speak our language, and we've had some people go to great lengths to accomodate our monolinguistic ways - including a shop keeper who dragged his sister down from her flat above the shop to help interpret our requests - all very humbling - mental note: must try harder to learn at least one other language.

There do seem to be a lot of local Spanish tourists though, making me wonder if Galicia isn't Spain's best kept secret? What with all the great food, good beaches, excellent weather and interesting towns - perhaps our espanyol amigos don't want us to know how good it is, so they can keep it for themselves? just a thought ;-)

Trip in numbers:

Miles since N15: 6702.5

Length of beard: 3.5cm - I've been looking at some recent pictures of myself with the beard, and I'm starting to think I suit it - perhaps I should persevere.

Beers drunk since starting this blog entry: 3 (burp!)