Day 6 - NE to NW Spain

Today was always going to be a transition day from North East Spain to North West Spain. The planned route was 350 miles & anticipated to take 5 hours and 47 minutes.

We left our pension around 10am, managed to get out of the underground car park without a single drama. The 1st leg of our journey was on a toll road that saved us 45 minutes on our journey. The toll fee was €12.70, but we probably saved at least half of that in fuel.

Our route took us along motorways, then dual carriageways through numerous tunnels & over viaducts (or possibly bridges) across the top of northern Spain. It was a pleasure to drive on, because everyone (and I mean everyone) adhered to rule of keeping to the right lane unless overtaking. We did not come across even one central or fast lane hogger, which is one of several of my pet hates. It also helped that from midday Spanish time, I was able to listen to the BBC commentary of Day 1 of the 1st day of the Ashes.

We stopped near Torrelevega to refuel & grab some refreshments. The fuel is pretty much the same price as in the UK, but in the cafe we bought 2 coffees, a large chunk of lemon cake & a couple of grilled sardine pintxo all for €5.40.

During tea at Edgebaston, we arrived at O Vicedo, a small port town in North West Spain. I was slightly nervous as to what we would find, because I booked our accommodation based on it’s general location and price only. We located our accommodation, Pension Galatea, immediately because it was situated on the main drag into town.

We had a quick motorised scoot around town & discovered that a travelling fun fair had come to town and was blocking the road down to the port. My inherent prejudices came to the fore & I had visions of our car being ransacked & on bricks by the morning.

Despite this stereotyping, we checked into our Pension, then headed out on foot towards the port. En-route we found a small bar, called El Varadero, that had tables looking out into the bay known locally as the Rio do Barquiero. We ordered a beer each & were given a small glass of local draft beer. I was initially unimpressed because they cost nearly €2 each, however the barmaid redeemed herself by bringing out a morsel of potato omelette each & a bowl of assorted nuts. Now I was impressed, so we ordered 2 more beers each that came with extra free morsels.

We then walked down to the harbour, through the funfair that was still being erected, to La Bodeguita del Puerto, a Southern American Cuisine restaurant. The waitress told us that they didn’t serve food until 8pm, so we had a couple more drinks in the sun until we were allowed to order. Jackie ordered baby squid & a side salad, whilst I ordered the pork tenders. Jackie’s was apparently lovely & despite being huge, she ate it all. Mine consisted of numerous cubes of pork sat on a bed of chips & covered in a fine drizzle of tomato relish. Unfortunately the pork was quite salty & not exactly tender, but I managed to eat most of it.

We ended the evening with a wine nightcap in the lively Bar Galatea, immediately below our room. Despite having the windows all night, we did manage to get to sleep.

Note : Having mastered the Spanish language sufficiently to purchase both red & white wine and beer, we have discovered that in this region the spoken language is Galician & our Spanish is not being understood. We are back to speaking English slowly and repeatedly and with a lot of pointing.

Song of the Day : Heading West by Cyndi Lauper.Read more