Cambados - the Capital of Albariño wine 😃

Left the Picos and headed west to the Galician coast, in anticipation of some gastronomic delights 🤣

Stopped for picnic lunch at a lovely beach along the north coast at Navia. The winds were really strong, creating great surfing conditions - we thought of you Ian 😃 Hoping to see the 25m waves at Nazare further down the coast in a couple of weeks 🤞

After a gusty, and quite hairy drive along the north coast, along numerous extremely exposed viaducts (probably not unexpected given the huge number of wind turbines bordering the motorway) we arrived at the historical coastal town of Cambados, the capital of Albariño wine 😃 Cambados is also famous for its beautiful old granite residences of former Spanish nobility. 

Palace on Fefinans Square

Staying at a small private Aire on the estuary- a lovely secure grassy enclosure for €10 a night, and only a 10min walk into the old town centre - perfect 🤩 Perfect for Rubes too as she can just wander around and explore 👍

Only us there!

View of the estuary from the Aire

Feeling tired after a long day travelling, but headed out into the old town for a bite to eat. Found a lovely little bar / restaurant where many locals were drinking and eating  - and a lovely (first) glass of Albariño  for me and a cerveza for Dave 🤣 Well done Dave on another tricky drive 👍

Still warm enough to sit outside

A Galician speciality, grilled queen scallops - so fresh and tasty - we weren't disappointed 🤣

Weather not great the next day so took the opportunity to catch up on a few chores - like cleaning out the van - much needed by now 🤣 Managed a short run in between showers, and took advantage of the park gym equipment 🤣 Definitely needing to up the exercise now that we are in gastronomic heaven! It was interesting to see how well used these park gyms actually are, and in particular by older men who seem to drop in on their daily walk for a few exercises- seems that if there is easy access / opportunity then people do take advantage of the facilities- a good public health initiative 👍

A fabulous public health initiative 🤣

Caught up with Alfredo (our Spanish teacher from Sheffield, who is now actually back living at his family home in Jerez)  for a really helpful lesson - an opportunity for us to test out what we have been practicing, and to check if what we are saying is making sense! Fortunately much of it does👍 Think our confidence is growing 🤞 Dave also had a Men up North meeting (online of course, with attendees from Indonesia as well as UK - all this mobile working across continents is very new to us 🤣) So by the end of the day we both felt ready to head out and sample the local delicacies again 🤣

Dinner was at a lovely traditional restaurant, set back from the main square, and totally authentic (run by an older husband and wife team). No English was spoken, so our rapidly growing Spanish vocabulary came in handy 🤣 Fortunately we had read about the restaurant, and menu in English online earlier in the day 👍

8.30pm and only us there - too early for the Spanish 🤣

Beautiful Spanish crockery

The most amazing Spanish tortilla - EVER!

Hmm, went for the baked cod speciality - a huge piece of cod but actually quite bland 😒
The lovely 12 euro bottle of Rioja helped though

The old square at night

Palace Tower with crenelated balcony 

We’ve really enjoyed our introduction to the Galician coast so far, despite the rubbish weather - hoping for some sun over the next few days 🤞

Hasta Luego 😃