Episode 28

Episode 28
We travelled along some of the northwest coast of Spain; the road we followed was a bit disappointing in the fact that we didn’t see much of the shore, just for a few short stretches here and there. Can’t say that it was a particularly nice stretch of coast, it was in the vicinity of Vivero west towards La Coruna. Sometimes we saw a small stretch of sandy shore, usually in a small bay and there were some large towns with marinas crowded with pleasure craft of all sizes. Two nice surfing beaches we saw from a distance but we couldn’t seem to get near for a closer look.
The hills immediately inland from the coast are covered in eucalyptus plantations, tall, straight, thin, and growing very densely packed. The eucalypt forest cover a huge area, in just a few places the big trees had been harvested and then left to revegetate without replanting.
We went into the city of La Coruna to see the harbour that the Spanish Armada set sail from in 1588 on its ill fated voyage to England. What we saw was a marina packed solid with large yachts and a fleet of fishing boats. In a small plaza we came across a bronze statue of John Lennon, just as well there was a notice to tell me that because I would not have recognized him. In another large plaza there is a statue of the local heroine Maria Pita who somehow or other was instrumental in stopping Sir Francis Drakes invasion of the town in 1589 (I think).
In a rather nice building on this plaza, and I have no idea what the building is, the ground floor had a rather unique nativity scene set up. It incorporated all the things you would expect to see in a 3 dimensional format with painted backdrop that was meant to represent Jerusalem on one wall, Bethlehem on another and a seascape on the third. Also it included many local and Spanish identities, like the local heroine dressed as a serving wench in a pub serving two other local characters. Picasso was sitting there painting a picture, and the sheppards were sitting around a camp fire while the sheep were sleeping beside them and an angle was hovering above. The whole thing was really meant for kids but it seemed that it was the adults who were the most interested.
It was Christmas Eve and the narrow pedestrian streets were crowded with Christmas shoppers, it seems that the Spanish are no different to the rest of us and dash about madly on Christmas eve fearful that they have forgotten something.
A very wet Christmas Day saw us in Santiago de Compostella. It is believed that it was here that St James is buries. His body having been transported here after he died in the 1st century AD: It was rediscovered in the 9th century and the first church built here in the 10th century. Because of this it became a place for pilgrims to visit and there are two or three different caminos that all end up here. A caminos is a walking trail meaning the ‘way of the pilgrim’: Santiago means Saint James:
The Cathedral is not all that large and was first begun in the 11th century in the Romanesque style most of which is still apparent but much more has been added in other styles since then. The main altar piece is very decorative and has much gold leaf and features many women both naked and scantily dressed. There is much more gold ornamentation around the outside of this main chapel. The original facade that is now under the cover of a newer larger one is the work of the 12th century master sculpture Maestro Mateo and features Christ risen and the four evangelists as well as angels, musicians and Santiago. It called the Portico de la Gloria:
We walked around some of the plaza and narrow streets in what is supposed to be a pedestrian zone and nearly go run over by cars several times. Only a few other people were out and about and though we saw many cafes and restaurants open elsewhere none were so in this central part of the city. The rain was so heavy that the water was several inches deep as it rushed down the cobbled streets seeming to easily avoid the many drains positioned to take it away.
The little resort town of O Gove is on a small peninsular and to reach it you drive across a causeway. Driving west towards it we passed some beaches that would be your worse nightmare to live near. Slimy mud covered with green algae and an assortment of flotsam that gets washed in on the high tide and stuck there, the smell was putrid. When we reached O Gove we saw more mud flats and many people out in the shallow water of the receding tide equipped with a container and a funny looking two handled shovel. We stood and watched them for a while. The shovel thing is used to scoop in the mud and rather than a solid spade it has a sieve that lets the mud fall through but catches any lumps and those lumps are some sort of shell fish that people were collecting. Further out in the bay in the sheltered water we could see lots of platforms, these are were a variety of shell fish are farmed, muscles, scallops and oysters. The people digging were possibly after those that escape from the farms, there are usually some escapees.
Further round the island we came to the town proper and here we walked out on a jetty where we could see a great many of those platforms. In the summer a couple of tour boats run an excursion out to have a closer look at the shell fish farms, two of those boats were tied up here at the jetty. In the little harbour there were dozens of small wooden boats with a centre seat and a couple of benches, specially set up to go out with the necessary equipment to collect those shell fish I expect. All these little boats were painted up in bright colours and on this bright sunny day they looked really pretty bobbing on the water. Looking down directly into the water it appeared to be very clear and we wondered if the green algae is something to do with the shell fish farming. These shell fish are raised for the export market as well as local consumption so they would be checked for any contaminants I would have thought especially seeing as Spain is part of the European Union.
According to the Lonely Planet book this is a resort town, a bit like Blackpool in England but we saw no sign of amusements here though there certainly was an abundance of hotels. Just why people would want to come and holiday here I have no idea because the beach is horrible but just a few mile away back on the mainland on the Atlantic coast we came to some lovely sandy beaches: A gentle surf was rolling in, there is a life guard tower and showers on the beach neither of which are operating at this time of year, the sun was shining brightly and two people were walking along the sand. Some way further on at another beach with better surf we did see two lads surfboard riding. Inside the next bay south in the calm water there is more of the platforms and the shell fish farms. The weather, once the rain had cleared is certainly warmer than in the mountains, it probably got up to about 16˚C, though the light breeze kept it from getting really warm.
This area of Spain is not where the foreign tourists come in their droves; this is where the Spanish come for their holidays. We have seen only one resort hotel and that wasn’t a really good one, not like you get on the Mediterranean coast, the “Costa Lota” or the “Costa del Crims”. There is however a great many small family run hostels and hotels.
On a bright and sunny morning with frost on the ground we crossed into Portugal with just a sign and an old customs shed by the roadside to mark the spot. What a boom this European Union is to us travellers, no border formalities and no currency exchange, such an improvement on the old ways. I don’t know just how many hours I have stood in queues and waited at border crossings or to get visas at embassies but it must amount to several days so I’m all for the expansion of the EU it makes life just so much simpler. It does the banks out of some profit too from exchange charges. But it does have a down side, the fact that these countries are getting more expensive by the minute as prices catch up with their more northern counterparts.
Driving down the valley of the Rio Lima it was built up most of the way with small towns and the hillsides are terraced and planted mainly with grapes grown on trellises about 170/190mm high that form an overhead canopy. The grapes stems are not allowed to branch until they reach the top, then they can spread all over the trellis and the bunches of fruit hang down and can be easily harvested. Saw them being grown the same way in Taiwan: Along with the grapes there are plenty of citrus trees and these are just loaded with bright orange fruit and the ground is littered with the fallen pieces. A few olive trees around too: Some small patches of forest with pines and eucalypts, they seem to like living in Portugal and Spain.
Like Spain there is a vast amount of road construction going on here. New roads recently opened or still under construction and not on our maps or in the Sat Nav maps. All the new motorways seem to be toll ways, so far we have managed to avoid the toll ways but its not easy as they are not clearly marked. In Spain even the minor roads have been upgraded over very recent years and it might prove to be the case here as well.
Our first major city was Viana do Castelo on the north coast. Here we found quite a pleasant old city centre with narrow cobbled streets and small shops. Along the river we found a wide open parkland with some gardens and there is a small marina. On the hill behind the town stands a Basilica so we took the funicular railway up to it though we could have walked or taken the car. The Basilica is modern and of no particular interest but there is a lift and a climb up some very narrow winding stairs to a viewing platform on top of the dome and the view is worth the climb and the 80cents. All the coast south of the river mouth is wide sandy beaches where the Atlantic rolls in, north of the river mouth the coast is rocks, well as far as we can see anyway, though all the information I have seen says that its a wide sandy beach all the way to the Spanish border. For the 1st Kilometre leading back from the shore there is agriculture with just an odd farm house, not even the town spreads right out to the mouth of the river. There does not appear to be any holiday resorts in this area. Just as we were about to go back down in the funicular a group of teenage boys came up in it bringing their mountain bikes, I always though that mountain bikes were meant to be ridden up mountains, not just down them.
The town is quite clean and tidy, there is not the huge amount of construction going on here as there appears to be in Spain, but in some ways the buildings seem in better repair. In Spain there are huge cranes everywhere and the amount of construction is staggering. Here it does have almost a 3rd world atmosphere, and I’m not real sure why: A big fruit and veggie market with all the stalls run by women just as you would see in Asia or Africa. Many of the older women still carry their goods on their heads, but I haven’t as yet seen any young ones doing so. Hundreds of tiny little shops just specializing in a few items, no big department stores though there has been a new shopping centre recently built that includes a supermarket and a number of speciality shops just as you would find in England or Australia.
Although there is still frost in the mornings and snow probably in the high mountains the days are getting warmer as we head further south. Portugal is on the same time zone as Britain, and one hour behind Spain. In western Spain it was getting a bit ridiculous really with the sun setting soon after 6pm but not rising till after 9am.
Ponte de Lima has a lovely old Roman bridge with many arches. It is about 150m long and 3m wide and as I strolled across I could just imagine the Roman legions tramping across in formation, shields held in one hand and spear in the other, helmets gleaming in the morning sunshine, and the swish of their leather garments. Too much imagination me, that’s my problem. On the far side stands a small square pavilion open on three sides and its pillars each have claws at the bottom, it dates from the 13th century and was built as a shelter for pilgrims. Not in wet windy weather obviously:
In the main praςa (plaza) a group of youngsters, 6 to 20 years olds and wearing Santa hats were going around standing outside each shop and singing a few bars of Jingle Bells, then a few bars of another song, over and over again whilst one of them went into the shop cap in hand, requesting a donation. It got a bit monotonous after 10 mins and they were still at it an hour later. The girl in the library told David that it happens each Saturday; Good Gracious!
It was very heavily overcast and trying to drizzle with rain as we reached the city of Braga, the religious capital of Portugal and the smog and haze had reduced visibility to about 200m. The city was busy with Saturday shoppers and is a maze of winding narrow streets that got us quite confused and to make matters worse we never did see one street name in the whole place. We got a map from the tourist office when we found it and fortunately it had little pictures of the main places that helped us identify each place that we came too, even then it wasn’t easy as many are built in a very similar style so I had to check detail to make sure.
The municipal buildings, the Bishops Palace and others have white painted plaster exteriors, there is much stone or concrete ornamentation around all the windows and doors, and there is a little narrow balcony with steel railings outside all those doors. All are two stories high and the type of ornamentation varies so as I said I had to look at the detail to work out which place I was looking at. The churches are mostly quite small but are usually richly decorated inside. Its no wonder these Catholic countries are the poor cousins of the rest of Europe, the Holey Roman church took all their money and a great lot of it went on the decoration of the interiors. The most important church in the city is The Se, the church of Santa Maria; it stands on the site that was once a Mosque in the days of the Moors. Built after the Christian reconquest the south door is from the earlier building. It incorporates a number of styles and is a bit of a rambling place inside, but has a lot of ornamentation on the exterior roof. Its built is a dirty yellowish stone, but that dirty colour may well be from the smog etc.
Under the shelter of a long arcade we came across another group busking in the street. These people were all adults of mixed ages and they were singing, clacking castanets, and a fellow was playing a clarinet to accompany them but they just seemed to sing the one song over and over again for the enjoyment of quite a large crowd.
One of the main religious attraction of the city is just a few k’s outside, it’s called Bom Jesus, and I have not idea what that means translated. But its a church and it sits atop a high mountain that overlooks the city, if only you could see it for the smog and haze. There is a great long stairway leading up to it with fountains all the way up. Looks very impressive from below: Apparently in summer its a popular place for a weekend picnic so perhaps its just as well we’re here in the winter without the crowds. A funicular runs from the bus stop at the bottom of the mountain, but by car we arrived at the start of the stairway.
It was fairly early in the morning when we walked up the steps pausing on each landing to look at the statues, one was a woman with the water pouring from her eye sockets, perhaps she is meant to represent the weeping Mary: Joggers out on their morning run frequently overtook us. We arrived at the church at the top just as Mass finished so we entered as the congregation left. Its not a particularly large church but it has a striking 3 dimensional altar piece. Centred around Christ on the cross with Mary, a Roman soldier and several others at the feet of Jesus. It is framed by two columns each topped by an angel supporting the ceiling. The scene was brightly backlit by orange light so photos don’t come out well.
Beyond the church is quite a large area of parkland with several small pavilions and grottos. Two hotels are within a few metres and at the top of the hill is a small lake with a few row boats. Pine trees and some eucalypts are the dominant trees in the forest; I did see a few yew trees too. Plenty of birds about and bird song filled the air. As we looked back over the city the sun came out, there were a few patches of fog in the valleys.
At this point I have seen enough churches so I think its time for another trip into the mountains to look at something different for a bit. There is a good National Park here supposedly but the weather isn’t really suitable for rambling about in the woods. The girl in the tourist office says that it never gets this cold usually, so much for global warming!
We headed east along a scenic route towards the town of Chaves. Wending our way around the mountains we could look across the valley and see small villages on remote hill sides. In the valley floor a series of small dams meant that there are lakes with villages around the shores. The hills beyond the villages are quite rugged and are part of a national park. Very bare, rocky and stark in appearance.
In one small village we parked after nearly getting jammed in the narrow lanes. Then following the sign to a waterwheel we set out walking giving a wide berth to the local cows that were wandering the lanes. These cows have large curved, twisted and extremely pointed horns; they could do a lot of damage if they had a mind to, though they did appear to be docile.
Eventually we came to the stream and a set of large stepping stones across it, also there was a really good stone slab bridge. Off this, on a side stream are several stone buildings that once held waterwheels. David had a good look around and decided that there could have been 3 waterwheels here altogether. In one shed we found an old quorn stone once used for grinding flour. Following a track along the stream we came to another stone shed that also looked as if it may have housed a waterwheel, then further on we came the medieval bridge, this is what we’d come into the village to see in the first place. It has 3 arches each a different size, the smallest on one side and the largest on the far side, there are buttresses to break up the strong flow of the water against the stanchion, just as the Romans used to build and it is still in good order and used by farm traffic.
Made our way back up through the village of stone houses and cobbled lanes without meeting the cows this time, and just as we got to the car we were approached by an elderly lady wanting a lift. I sat her in the front seat whilst I sat in the back and we took her about 6k’s up the road to a small village just below a huge dam wall.
We let her out where she asked and she hugged me and kissed me, then we drove onto the dam wall and sat in the sunshine to eat our late lunch. This is a very high and very wide dam wall yet the dam behind it is not as large as one might expect. Below the wall there is a hydro station.
© Lynette Regan 30th December 2007