Old Hands, part 18

The next morning we had breakfast near the hotel, choosing the place because it had a fresh orange juice machine, which had become a favorite of Brian and the kids. There was sort of a holding pen for a couple dozen oranges, which dropped down into the juicing mechanism when the waiter needed to make a glass of juice. “This is the best orange juice in the world!” Lisa said.

After breakfast Mike and Brian went to see an exhibit on the 500th anniversary of the University of Santiago de Compostela, and I took Julie and Lisa on a souvenir quest. We wanted little scallop shells, the symbol of St. James and the pilgrimage. The kids got them in silver, on silver chains, and I got one in gold.

We met back at the hotel and piled into the car for a trip around the first of three peninsulas we planned to see. Galicia has several rías (rivers) that empty into the Atlantic, to the west, and between them are peninsulas with pretty scenery, beaches, and little fishing towns. This first day we drove to O Grove and had lunch in a seafood place by the water, then went to La Toja, an island resort nearby with astonishingly junky souvenir stands.

The next day we drove south to the next peninsula, with many beautiful views of the ría along the way. The weather was better than we had expected—Galicia was normally a rainy place, but we had lots of blue skies. We stopped in Pontevedra, a small city with a well-kept old quarter. We walked around a bit and visited the provincial archaeology museum. Then we headed out on the peninsula and found an empty sand beach in Vilanova. Brian, Mike and I settled down on the warm, white sand, and Julie and Lisa played at the water line, dipping a toe in and running back up the beach. “This is fantastic!” Julie said. “Look at all the shells,” Lisa shouted, scooping up dozens of them to bring home.

In the village of Cangas we had a huge seafood lunch, and then we drove on to Vigo, a big fishing town. We checked into our hotel there and split up again. This time Brian took Lisa to dinner while Mike, Julie and I went to see the movie The Birdcage in Spanish. “I’m really proud that your Spanish is good enough for you to understand a whole movie in Spanish,” Mike said.

“It’s not even hard,” Julie told him.

In the morning we drove to the next peninsula down the way, stopping first to look at the ruined castle at Balona. We walked along the castle walls and looked out at the Atlantic Ocean, which was sparkling and white-capped. Then we went to La Guardia, where we drove up Santa Tecla, a mountain that provided great views and housed some fascinating Celto-Iberic ruins. These were the stone walls of circular houses built around 100 B.C. Two houses had been reconstructed with thatch roofs to show what they had looked like in the period.

We were a short distance from Portugal by this time. In fact, our surroundings had seemed more and more Portuguese as we moved south. Most signs were in Gallego, the Galician dialect, which looked a lot like Portuguese, and the quiet little fishing towns looked like those in Portugal. “Could we go across the border for lunch?” Brian asked. “I’ve never been there.”

“Sure,” Mike said. So we crossed a bridge and drove gingerly through three narrow gateways into Valença, a walled fortress city that turned out to be a whitewashed shopping town. The place was filled with Spaniards looking for sheets and towels, which were of a better quality in Portugal than what you could get in Spain. We walked out to the pousada—similar a Spanish parador, a pousada is a government-run hotel in a building of historic interest—and had a great lunch there, with a stunning view of the hills around us. We drove back into Spain, stopped to see the little cathedral in Tui, and returned to Vigo.

“Can we go to the Virgin Megastore?” Brian asked when he saw its billboard by the highway. “I bet I can get import-only CDs there I could never find at home.” The kids loved this idea, so we shopped for a while and then went out for tapas.

“What was everyone’s favorite part of the trip?” Mike asked.

“I loved the cathedral and the basilica in León,” I said.

“My favorite was playing on the beach,” Julie said.

“Sleeping,” Lisa told us.

Mike thought for a minute. “My favorite thing was lunch,” he said.

“My favorite was singing along to the Kid Creole CDs in the car,” Brian said.

We got on the road early the next day and made a morning stop at the castle of Monterrei, which was built by the duke who had founded Monterrey, Mexico and Monterey, California. An old caretaker there showed us around the place. Then Mike, Brian and Julie went into a nearby antiques shop while Lisa and I waited in the car for what seemed like hours. When they finally came out, we were steaming mad.

“What were you doing in there for so long?” Lisa demanded.

“We bought two ox yokes!” Mike said happily. “They’ll be delivered to us at home tomorrow. One for Brian and one for us.” We were not amused.