Last Saturday a group of Auxiliares went to Ourense to celebrate my roommate's birthday. We went to
as termas (hot spring bath) Burgas in the middle of the city. I (luckily?) forgot my towel so didn't bathe. It was odd because it was quite public, just a small changing room, and then passersby could observe you in the pool. There was a fountain by it with naturally scalding hot water. After the hot bath, we spent the day wandering around the city and stopping in a handful of cafes and shoe stores.
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| Las chicas en el Puente Romano |
This weekend Lauren and I returned to Ourense with another group of friends--mostly Lucenses and a pair of Germans. Because we went with people who knew what they were doing, we went to a very nice
termas called Outariz. You had to pay 5 euros to get in, meaning it was more upscale and private. We arrived after 9 o'clock. Bathing outside under the moon at the riverside. Dreamy. There are about 15 different baths to enter. Theoretically between two hot baths, you go in a cool bath so as not to die. We skipped some of these cool baths because it was bloody cold outside (close to midnight in the middle of December-- it's to be expected) as we scurried from bath to bath. The contrast between air temp and water temp was often extreme, and produced vapors which made it seem all the more relaxing. The experience left me ready for bed, except it was midnight and we still hadn't eaten dinner. By the time we picked up pizzas and had gone to our home for the night (aka our friend's grandparents' country home), I figured we would go to bed and save our energies for today's 12 km hike. But no. Almost everyone thought it'd be a great idea to stay up til 3 playing cards. It was pretty cool, because I haven't played with a Spanish deck yet, and I like cards...but I was way too zoned out to take directions in Spanish.
No pasa nada.
This morning everyone woke up a bit groggy. We had a very Spanish breakfast of coffee/Cola Cao and toast/cookies, and were only 1 hour behind our 10 AM starting goal. First we went to Ourense to see the city for a bit. Although it's bigger than Lugo, it's not really chock-full of tourist destinations. Afterwards we went towards Ribeira Sacra, a region now famous for it's wine. It's incredible to see the hills completely full of rows and rows of grape vines (although at this time of year they were just dry vines). One company doesn't own an entire hillside, rather families own a few rows which are passed down through generations. Apparently everyone knows which are theirs, but there can be territory disagreements too.
We took in some great views at three different
miradoiros or viewpoints.
Al final, we didn't do our big hike like we'd planned, but it was probably better that way. We did get some exercise walking around the
miradoiros. It was such great weather, especially for the middle of December. We had sandwiches outside and didn't even need a winter coat.
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| Grupo majo al último mirador |
This weekend Lauren and I returned to Ourense with another group of friends--mostly Lucenses and a pair of Germans. Because we went with people who knew what they were doing, we went to a very nice termas called Outariz. You had to pay 5 euros to get in, meaning it was more upscale and private. We arrived after 9 o'clock. Bathing outside under the moon at the riverside. Dreamy. There are about 15 different baths to enter. Theoretically between two hot baths, you go in a cool bath so as not to die. We skipped some of these cool baths because it was bloody cold outside (close to midnight in the middle of December-- it's to be expected) as we scurried from bath to bath. The contrast between air temp and water temp was often extreme, and produced vapors which made it seem all the more relaxing. The experience left me ready for bed, except it was midnight and we still hadn't eaten dinner. By the time we picked up pizzas and had gone to our home for the night (aka our friend's grandparents' country home), I figured we would go to bed and save our energies for today's 12 km hike. But no. Almost everyone thought it'd be a great idea to stay up til 3 playing cards. It was pretty cool, because I haven't played with a Spanish deck yet, and I like cards...but I was way too zoned out to take directions in Spanish. No pasa nada.
This morning everyone woke up a bit groggy. We had a very Spanish breakfast of coffee/Cola Cao and toast/cookies, and were only 1 hour behind our 10 AM starting goal. First we went to Ourense to see the city for a bit. Although it's bigger than Lugo, it's not really chock-full of tourist destinations. Afterwards we went towards Ribeira Sacra, a region now famous for it's wine. It's incredible to see the hills completely full of rows and rows of grape vines (although at this time of year they were just dry vines). One company doesn't own an entire hillside, rather families own a few rows which are passed down through generations. Apparently everyone knows which are theirs, but there can be territory disagreements too. 
