First major event after the school-year ending was my parents' visit to Galicia. Yupi! Renting a car allowed us to see some sweet sites, even if it was stressful for my padre.
Santiago
In the city of pilgrims, we saw the Cathedral, obviously. We also did some gastronomic exploring, although bear in mind my mom's favorite phrase, "NO ME GUSTA PULPO¨ (I don't like octopus). I took them to a cool place in the forest called Santiso, which uses all-Galician products, and even vegetables from their garden.
Lugo
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| Sipping that Galician brew |
Most of our time, the walled city was our homebase. Because it's that great! Saturday night they experienced Lugo's free tapas. Then we ended up getting a real dinner of raciones (bigger plates of food shared by everyone) with some of my English-speaking friends jeje. Another day was Lugo's craft beer festival, so my dad and I checked that out. But mom was not forgotten; he got her a donut from the handmade pastry tent. A donut the size of a head.
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| Checking out the Castro |
We also checked out Castro de Viladonga, the ruins of a Celtic town about 30 minutes outside of Lugo. Apparently it's one of my favorite places to take visitors, seeing as I've been there 3 times in the past 2 months. It's just fascinating to have something so old in our midst. Also the museum helps bridge the gap between the ruins you see and the lives they lived 2000 years ago.
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| THE WALL. |
Another quick excursion from Lugo is the Ancares, aka the area where I (and my best friend) teach. O Cebreiro is about an hour away, and it's the first stop in Galicia on the
Camino Francés de Santiago (the French Way to Santiago). But more than just pilgrims pass through, because it's a lovely town known for it's
pallozas.
Pallozas are the traditional, circular, Galician dwellings made of stone with a thatched roof. I'm not sure if people still live in them or they're just for show. But when we were there someone was repairing the roof of one. And on the way back home we drove by my school to check it out, but since it was a Sunday there was no one around.
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| A Palloza! In the sun! |
The North Coast
Of course the highlight of a visit to Lugo's coast is the beach of As Catedrais. The tide was higher than expected, but after eating it went down far enough to walk around a bit. But we still couldn't go far enough to see the famed arch from the beach. We did, however, get to see it from above, on a cliff.
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| As Catedrais, not so much sun. |
Asturias
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| Cudillero |
Since we were already at the north coast, the master vacation planner (me) decided to take them to Asturias which is similar to Galicia and can be really quite charming. Our first stop was the town Cudillero, which has a port surrounded by a hill and houses going up. Wouldn't want to live at the top! Here we enjoyed ice cream sundaes (well, Dad missed out and stuck to coffee).
Our stop for the night was Oviedo, the capital of Asturias. There's really a big difference architecturally between Lugo and Oviedo. So fancy! Also nice because we visited my friend who is "super Asturian" and knows a lot about the city, so let's just say he makes a much better tourguide than me haha. For dinner we went out to a
sidrería, a typical Asturian cider house. Here's a fun fact I never knew, in most places the waiter is supposed to pour it for you every time, not just the first time. And it's rude to ask for more (no matter how thirsty you are), he's supposed to be aware of how long it's been since he's last poured it for you. By the way, the sidra is poured from up high so that it airs out. They only pour you a little bit at a time because you're supposed to drink it all at once. And also glasses get shared; you leave a tiny bit for the waiter to toss out and thereby "cleaning" it. It was definitely cool seeing them pour back to back from such heights. And for food, I'm sure my parents got something hearty, but for me the main attraction was the HUGE tortón (fried bread made of corn). We split it between the two of us, but realistically needed a 3rd person to help out. Seriously, look at the size of that thing compared to a hand! :O
And that really concludes my parents' adventure in the North. They went down to Madrid for a few days, but I passed on that since it's not really my city. Now to start planning new, interesting places for their next visit!
