White, White Wine ♪

Albariño may get all the fame and glory, but there's more than one Galician white wine with a certificate of origin. Ribeiro is often a cheaper option, perhaps due to its lack of celebrity on the wine circuit. Albariño is sweeter, but Ribeiro has nothing to be ashamed of! In fact, I often order it when I'm out partly because it's less expensive.

I mention all this because recently in Ribadavia I attended my third wine festival (after Chantada's  fair and Cambados' Albariño fest). Over 35 wineries proudly offered their fermented grape juice. The blind tasting was the fastest (and cheapest!) way to try some Ribeiro. It was held in an old stone church converted into a social center. For 5€ you could try 11 or 13 white wines, from small family wineries or larger companies respectively. We didn't really think things through, and got a different ticket each. So 10€ to try 24 white wines. The servings were quite generous, too. Not that we finished them all. Only the top 10 (or 15). Needless to say, I won't be ordering Ribeiro any time soon.

After the wine tasting, we didn't last long. There was a weird dj playing in the fairgrounds. I guess I just hadn't had enough wine to fully enjoy/understand it. We had brought our tent to go camping afterwards, but in the tourist office they said there were no campgrounds within walking distance. They told us for one night to just camp in a park on the outskirts of town. And that we did, right next to a short rushing waterfall.

We packed up and moved out early the next morning. Early for Galicia on a Sunday, at least. On the way home we stopped at the Pozas of Melón. Galicia is full of rivers that have pools sectioned-off naturally by boulders, called pozas. We explored this one on our own, as no one else was around before noon. A shady trail accompanied the river and its waterfalls, while some boulders within the river provided the perfect place to sun ourselves and get some more sleep.

All of that Ribeiro wine, however, didn't make me forget what had originally brought us to the region. On Friday we had gone to O Carballiño, the biggest town within the origin-certified Ribeiro wine region. Despite the fact that less than 15,000 people live there, it has a huge, modern cathedral. Unexpected! The town also has a great riverside walk and park. There was a rock atop a hill dedicated to lovers. Unfortunately, it would seem that for years people have been professing their undying love on it via graffiti. Nearby there was a mill museum that looked promising, but it was closed.

Here O Carballiño is synonymous with octopus. Octopus...so far from the coast? Apparently 50 years ago when the town's annual octopus fair started, octopus was a dish for poor people. It was seen as a nuisance caught in the fishers' nets. How times change! Now this dish represents not only O Carballiño, but Galicia as a whole. Therefore, prices have gone up. But Carballiño is so well-known for its octopus that one must wonder: If you visited Carballiño without having octopus, did you even visit there at all? I guess we'll just have to go back.

Pazo de Lourizán: Manor Gardens near Pontevedra

The traditional housing for the wealthy in Galicia were called pazos, which are literally translated as palaces. However, they're not quite as opulent as the Palace of Versailles or any other grand palace that might come to mind. A better translation would be manors or estate houses. The Rías Baixas, on the southwest coast, is dotted with them. Some are wineries, some are open to the public, and some are private property. On the outskirts of the city of Pontevedra lies Pazo de Lourizán.

 The manor house itself is now dilapidated, and you can't go in to visit. But its grandiose staircase and facade remind us of prosperous times gone by. It was built in the 19th century as the summer home for the noteworthy Galician politician, Montero Ríos. It boasts being the place where the Treaty of Paris was hashed out after the Spanish-American War.

With the pazo off limits, the real star of the show is the gardens. It's currently used as an investigation center for forestry, which means it hosts hundreds of different shrubs, trees, and flowers. When we went on a weekday, there was hardly anyone around and we could enjoy a peaceful stroll by ourselves. Well, actually, with our 2-year-old nephew in tow, peaceful probably isn't the best description. But the expansive gardens were lovely and he got to run around freely. The pazo is also on the Camellia Route because it has several varieties of camellia tree (very popular in this region). In the investigation center they are studying what uses camellia oil can have.

The gardens are more than just trees, though. There's a grotto, a fountain, and a long hórreo. The property goes continually upward, so the views of the ría from behind the manor are lovely. They must have been before ENCE was built, at least. ENCE is the controversial paper mill that has been stinking up the city of Pontevedra and its surroundings for decades. Technically their permit is up, but only time (and politics) will tell if they actually close shop. Fingers crossed!