The Galician Coast

With the weather brightening up we spent the next couple of days exploring the coastal area around Cambados. 

The Ria de Arousa (estuary) on which the town sits is famous for its seafood, and reportedly the best place to eat seafood in Spain - a perfect combination with the Albariño wine 😃 The estuary is dotted with dozens of small fishing boats, and interestingly dozens of women in waders with huge buckets and long poles scraping away at the rocks and seabed collecting clams. This was despite huge notices everywhere saying that collection of seafood is prohibited and anyone spotting such activity should contact the Police - seems nobody bothers about that round here 🤣

Prohibido Mariscar even painted on the rock!

Clam collectors ignoring all notices 🤣

The Illa de Arousa is a lovely small island connected to the mainland via a huge low bridge. Our plans to explore the coast and the nature reserve which covers the bottom half of the island soon became thwarted when we were faced with huge signs forbidding dogs to enter the reserve 😖 We did wonder whether we should ignore the signs and proceed, just like the clam collectors, but decided not to risk it 🤣 Well, Dave would  probably have proceeded but I’m too rule bound 🤣 Anyway, we did manage to divert and see more of the west coast instead.

Deserted beaches

Over the bay to an old Finca - a place for motorhome stopovers

A lovely cooling swim at the end - Rubes setting out to rescue Dave 🤣

Back on the mainland we found a lovely place to stay for the night on the coast outside of Cambados, all to ourselves 👍 In fact as we were trying to decide where to park up (with the help of Park4Night App)  a car stopped and a young man got out - he was really friendly told us where would be best to park, as it turns out that he operates a small  bar on the beach around there during the summer months (closed now unfortunately 😏) and was keen for us to find a good place to stay for the night - very welcoming and kind of him 👍😊 

Our spot for the night 👍

The following day we set off to explore the coast below Cambados. As usual, komoot suggested a fabulous 10km walk around the peninsula- and we weren’t disappointed 👍 It was a beautifully hot sunny day, just the perfect conditions to see it at its best.

Fish farms out in the bay

Spent our final night back at the original Aire in Cambados. The owner popped in during the evening (he’s not there all the time as it’s all set up to be self service) and we had a giggle when he commented that he knew we’d stayed before (as we had never previously met him!) - he told us he was a pilot and had “seen” us when he was flying in from Cancun 🤣 We’re assuming he’s monitoring the site via the security surveillance cameras - so hoping we weren’t caught in any compromising ways on camera 🤣🤣🤣 Anyway, as seems to be the case around here, he too reached out to us with generosity and offered to get a gas refill to be delivered to us later that evening, by his brother from the family hardware store. Sure enough when we returned home from dinner the gas was waiting for us 😃

Dinner was a fabulous occasion, and definitely the best food we’d eaten in Cambados. Found a lovely small Taberna, and noted many Spanish people were eating there - always a good sign in a tourist hot spot 👍 The owner was lovely, and responded well to our attempts at speaking Spanish 🤣

Croquettas - Dave's favourite 😉

Gambas Ajillo - SO fresh and tasty!

Can't get enough scallops 🤣

Lovely Galician vino tinto 👍

We’ve really enjoyed our short visit to Galicia. We’ve seen some amazing coastline, natural environment, birds, and traditional ways of life. Not all of this region and coastline is picturesque though - some of it is very built up and rammed with holiday apartments, as this is a major holiday destination for the Spanish in the summer months. Exploring at this time of the year was perfect 😍 The food was truly amazing, and definitely lives up to the regions reputation as serving some of the best seafood in Spain., as well as our hopes for our stay in the region 👍 Oh yes, and the wine, truly wonderful too - and cheap! We were really amazed at how affordable everything was, compared to the UK! 🤣 We’re really grateful to Alison and Chris who inspired us to explore this region after their kayak adventure along the coast here, as part of their Santiago de Compestello trek 

Leaving Spain now and heading into Portugal 😃