The Great Iberian Road Trip, Days 29 TO 31: Night Swimming, Cafés And Dolphins

One of the most important weapons parents have in the battle to keep the peace is The Veiled Threat. In these enlightened times, we no longer resort to the menace of an outstretched palm across the skin or much worse, as I myself also experienced. Our punishment of choice is the child’s elimination from an exciting activity. Works quite effectively for a little while, but then when they think they’ve escaped they get naughty again. I don’t take any prisoners – all my kids have experienced the shame of not going to a party or on a trip.

So when we arrived in the small fishing town of Sardiñeiro near Finisterre on Friday evening, we made for the beach before it was too dark. It had been a lovely day, but we had been stuck in the car for a lot of it having travelled from San Cibrao via A Coruña, so we wanted to at least make the most of our evening.

But it was really just beginning.

We quickly changed into our swimming gear and headed for the sea. Now… I’ve been in the Baltic, the North Sea and the English Channel, but nothing comes close to an Atlantic dip. In fact, after the Mediterranean, I would say the Baltic Sea was the second warmest. I jumped in at Faaborg in September 2020 and it was like having a bath compared to the Atlantic. It was a bit of a struggle to maintain composure for too long, but I got my whole body under after a few random screeches and squeals, much to the amusement of a local lady perched on her portable sunbed, reading a railway station thriller.

A perfectly orchestrated way of getting young children to comply is to Open A Door, rather than force them to do stuff. So in order to get off the beach, there is a very handy restaurant and café just next to the showers. A nice pineapple juice and an evening snack was gratefully received.

The next morning, after a restless time trying to get them to settle, they were all acting a little ratty and irritated. We spent the morning at home recuperating (we all had an inexplicable fatigue that kept us from going far), but once our stomachs were starting to rumble, we made for Fisterra, the last town before North America. It was a delightful resort with a decent selection of places to eat, albeit at medium-to-expensive price ranges, but as we don’t want to break the budget, we settled on something cheap.

It was about a quarter to four, and we wanted a dessert. The guy running the restaurant pointed us to a place just two doors up – the name was Batidor (Whisk), and it was run by a Hungarian family that had made the Santiago pilgrimage a few times and loved it here, so decided to settle. They had been open just a year, but it was already a famous place in the town. It’s not hard to see why: their Grand Café-style cakes were beyond phenomenal, so elegantly made and delivered to perfection. And their coffee was extraordinary… a proper Central European brew. But the atmosphere was very laid back and it was very clear they loved what they did. So did we.

But the rattiness was becoming a bit of an issue, so we didn’t stay long. We drove to the end of the land to see the famous Finisterre lighthouse, do some walking (always a struggle), and make some memories. Then at about six, we wanted to go to the beach again. It had started to cloud over, but Dainoris was determined to get his swimming costume on. How do you tell a five-year-old that he can’t go to the beach? You tell him it’s too cold and he won’t enjoy it. Then when he kicks up a fuss, you let him experience it. Works very well – slowly, each time you hit a conflict like this and you are proven right, the more they will trust your call, or at least follow your decision. At least, that’s the theory…

So when we drove back to the centre, people were leaving the beach in their droves. Dainoris and Livia got their costumes on, Milda sceptically followed. They reached the water’s edge, dipped one toe in and came straight back. “Yes, it’s a little cold,” said Dainoris with a matter-of-fact look on his face. I hadn’t changed into my swimming stuff, because I was sure I wouldn’t entertain the idea of getting in. I put my toe in and let’s just say the only thing I experienced that was colder than that water was the greeting I got from a girlfriend’s mother the day she met me. That was in Łódź way back in 1994. That’s another epic story…

So we quickly got off the beach and had a little walk back to the car. A little earlier, I mentioned the Veiled Threat. How did I manage to curtail the bad mood and ill feeling between the siblings? Earlier on, I had managed to procure tickets for a boat trip out into the sea and around the breathtaking bay. Nobody wanted to be the person who lost out on that trip; Dainoris had been asking for weeks, but until we got to Fisterra, I hadn’t come across any proper boat excursions. Well, this was about to change.

On Sunday 28 July, we all got up at a leisurely time, which in this house is when the hour hand is still on the lower half of the clock. Breakfast was easy, getting ready was a cinch. It was a pure delight to experience that feeling when nobody was getting on anyone’s nerves… it made a real change. I wonder what could have caused all this niceness to suddenly happen – oh yes, a boat trip!

Arriving in the port, we had a little time to kill, so we went for a short walk – cue the usual groans, albeit quickly quelled with a little appropriate comment. Dainoris kept asking if the boat was far still, but it didn’t go on as heavily as before.

We boarded the boat a little after 12.15, departure at 12.30. The ticket seller was a jolly woman, and the two men who ran the boat were excellent communicators. All-in-all, it made for a splendid boat trip. The children couldn’t contain their excitement, wanting simultaneously to be looking out from the upper deck to sitting at the back dipping their hands in the water. The boat passed Finisterre lighthouse, which we had seen the day before, and then entered much deeper waters.

At one point, the captain switched off the engine and the traditional music that they insisted on inflicting on us, and waited for a few minutes. Suddenly, there was a splash in the water nearby and an almighty gasp from some other passengers. It was a family of dolphins, athletically flitting under the keel, swerving around the stern and darting off into the watery depths. What a moment for us. If I were to see dolphins every day, I would never get tired of it.

The motor kicked back in, as did the inescapable music, and we continued on our trip round the bay. The view of the distant mountains, a green so dark it was almost black, in front of them lower rounder peaks, and between them and the sea a gentle slope down to the numerous towns and villages dotted around the edge of the water.

When we reached the harbour once more, I felt a deep satisfaction that is hard to describe, but I think one of those mental resets took place in me. The feeling of having been through a huge toxic build-up had now sunk back into its evil little nest and started biding its time before the next round of nastiness. But for now, I was feeling cleansed and full of energy.

I had booked for us to go to a restaurant opposite the boat’s moorings, and we went to eat. Bonny Bee and I decided for the first time in a long time to actually eat a fish dish. The kids settled for their usual fried orange rubbish, except Livia, who saw the opportunity to eat spaghetti Bolognese, her default meal.

We sensed a wave of drowsiness coming over the three of them and thought it was a good opportunity to take them home and give them a good rest. In the meantime, with the kids out of action, my excitement levels built up – I could actually spend some time just for me! I decided to go straight in the sea. Across the road and slightly to the left is another absolute beauty of a beach. Crescent-shaped, fairly wide, shallow waters, nearly no waves. What wasn’t to like…?

A couple of hours later, I headed back. Livia and Dainoris felt like going in the sea. So I took them to the other beach in Sardiñeiro where we went on our first day here. Milda was keen to stay on the sofa. Livia and Dainoris have a rather strained relationship, mainly due to Milda’s attachment to her brother, so this was a good moment for me to try to forge some new bonds between these two.

Because her siblings have this powerful relationship, and also because of her own character, Livia is quite a loner. So on the beach, she approached the nearest group of kids and insinuated her way into playing with them. Sometimes the kids let her in, sometimes they find her weird and keep trying to move away. This time, the group of boys found her to be an object of fun, with a little malice. She didn’t get it, but she knew something wasn’t right. Intervening, it soon became clear they were bemused by her witterings in English and once I explained it to them, they were fine. They still didn’t play too much with her, so I played the monster in the water. I found some seaweed and pretended to attack Dainoris and Livia with it, which lasted long into the evening.

The sun was setting, and we (especially I) had built up quite an appetite. Despite the afternoon’s meal, which wasn’t that heavy to be fair, we settled on egg and chips in the restaurant next to the beach. Then with heavy stomachs, heavier muscles and even heavier eyes, we headed back to our cramped little apartment up the hill.

All three fell asleep almost instantaneously after a quick nighttime snack and the usual bathroom routine. I was still bouncing though, so in the dead of night, I headed to a cove just five minutes from us, and took a midnight skinny dip. While I was in the soothing, warm water, I saw two shooting stars. I swam round to the beach the other side of the rocks, touched the sand and swam back.

Feeling alive is one of the main factors that has been absent the last few years. One of the main reasons for my continual state of feeling life is passing me by is that, like Livia, I have very few friends. In fact, once the children came, I hardly saw anyone any more. And visitors got put off either by the perpetual neediness of the kids or my levels of stress while trying to juggle everything at the same time as well as my own self-control. I have continually been a nomad in social circles. And so I have done my best to enjoy life despite the obvious blank spaces in my list of acquaintances. I know I’m a difficult person to be around for more than a couple of hours, but the revolving doors of friends have never stopped turning. I guess it’s me.

So I enjoy my own company.

In any case, this was a very special full day, and one that will live long in the memory. On the way back to the apartment from the beach, I met a senior lady in her front yard. I asked her what the huge concrete sheds on stilts were. At first, I suspected apiaries because of their small gaps. Definitely not dovecotes, anyhow. Not even a sparrow could fit through those slits. She surprised me by saying that they were to store maize. But then it kind of made sense. She said down in the village of Carnota was a really big one, the largest in the area. Well, I thought, now I know what we’re doing tomorrow!

And so, after a vegetarian lunch of pasta with carrots, onions and cherry tomatoes in a red sauce, we headed south to Carnota, passing some of the most stunning scenery I have ever seen. There are areas of the world where you can look at a photo and almost pinpoint where it is. But there is so much of everything in Galicia, it would be virtually impossible. I could show photos where you would think you were on the Amalfi coast, or Koh Samui, or Lofoten, or western Ireland, or Garda and Como, or the Yorkshire Dales, or the Massif Central, or the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, or the Białowieża forest of eastern Poland, or Brittany, or even the Caribbean. It’s everything all in one area.

We arrived in Carnota, a pretty quiet place in the middle of nowhere on the way to somewhere else. We were looking for a place to have dessert but the only place open had just croissants. As I reached the crossroads in the centre of the village, I saw a sign saying “Carnota Beach”, so I thought we’d give it a try. Driving between houses barely wide enough for a car to go through, round labyrinthine streets carved out from the pre-motor vehicle era, we reached a fairly straight piece of road. At the end of it was this hostelry under the trees. It looked so inviting. And indeed it was. And they had some delicious desserts!

But the biggest surprise was yet to happen – further down this seemingly deserted track was a huge car park and a wooden walkway over some dunes and a river to Carnota Beach. Just when you thought you had seen it all, you step through the gap in the dunes and you are confronted with an endless semicircle of sand stretching in both directions as far as you could see. The backdrop, some impressive mountains, once again convinced me that we would be returning to Galicia many more times in the future.

The children couldn’t get into their swimming gear fast enough. We spent the rest of the afternoon there under a clement sun dodging the waves and making more memories. On the way back, I stopped to buy a few provisions – despite being in the shop a good twenty-five minutes, nobody felt like leaving the car.

Three more days and then we head to the next destination.

EXTRA PHOTOS:

The Great Iberian Road Trip, DAYS 22-28: How To Enjoy Your Travels - Less Is More

The final week in San Cibrao was a bit quieter and just more of the same. We are firm believers in the “Less Is More” principle of travelling. I prefer to stick around a certain area for a while to really get to feel it; to live and breathe it; to understand what makes it tick. To eat in the local centres of life, drink with a few regulars, watch the world go by. There’s nothing worse than micro-management on a trip. I mean, a few nights ago, I decided to go for a full moon walk along the water’s edge and into the forest. It was magic – I witnessed a shooting star and managed to get truly lost for a few minutes, my first time ever. I wasn’t scared, just a little extra adventure. I got home at just before 3 in the morning.

Now imagine if we had planned our week here to the second, like some people do – imagine that we had to get going somewhere by 9. I would have missed that beautiful event to go to bed on time, and I would have been stressing about getting everyone ready to go out by a certain time and worried that we’d miss this or that because of the time constraints. There are people who do this, and they’re missing out on a much more important thing than checking off everything on their list: immersion.

Immersion in the neighbourhood you are visiting, whether for part of a day or for an extended stay, is essential to the aim of travel. What’s the point in going to Venice, Valencia or Vilnius if you’re just going to eat in fast food joints and drink coffee from the place with the big green fairy? I’ve seen tourists complain because of the most basic of things, most of them because their familiarity boundaries are being challenged.

Tourists contribute to the local economy not necessarily by just staying in rental accommodation – the owner might live a long way away – the best way is by getting your food and drink from the places the locals go to: fruit and veg shops, bakeries, butcher’s shops, cafés, restaurants and bars; buying locally-made products in non-chain stores; and a very effective way is to encourage others to do the same by placing positive reviews in the places you liked. If you want to provide negative feedback on a place, make sure it’s believable and neutral, leaving out as much subjective language as you can. Nobody believes vulgar or disdainful language in reviews.

In some cities and tourist traps, buying in independent outlets can be a punishing experience, and quite counterproductive. I remember one ruse this shop owner in a tourist resort pulled on me once: I wanted to buy a pot of honey. He said it was 12 euro for one, 30 for three. I said I’d just like one, and he said you can only buy a minimum of three. I told him he’d just lost a larger sale, because I was planning on buying several other items.

His loss.

Parking can be another very contentious issue. People bang on about always using public transport, but their infrequency and the time it takes to get anywhere often cancel out their advantage. Some cities provide adequate parking for everyone. Spain has excellent facilities for parking, and provide really decent apps to make the process much easier so you can stay the whole day without having to take action. But go to Germany where they are about 20 years behind in the use of technology and you can find yourself needing a huge supply of coins and the inability to leave a certain area for long because the meter has a 2-hour limit and you have to return to top it up later.

Having a car means I can show my family many more things than I could ever do otherwise. And not taking these three little Herberts on public transport is doing everyone a huge favour, believe me. I have always had a list of places I have wanted to visit, and I’ve started with the ones we can do by car. I have always wanted to go to A Coruña, ever since I saw it on a map, and I have always wanted to go to Santiago de Compostela. Not for the pilgrimage aspect – it is not my religion – but for the ambience, the feel of the place, and to maybe meet some interesting people. I may not believe in the god of Moses and Jesus, but my religion explicitly directs me to respect all other religions and the people who practise them. Except when they’re trying to force their own beliefs on you: then I can let out some hot air.

Anyway, we’re now in Finisterre, or Fisterra, as it’s known in Spanish. Before we left San Cibrao, we went a couple of times to the enormous municipal playground in Burela for the kids to play with the locals there. They’re so caring and thoughtful – they all group together their money to go buy sweets that they can all share, like chuches, which are packets of lollies with three or four in each, or they push the smaller ones on the swings. They’re also kids, so they don’t always feel obliged to hang around and might go to another square for a while before they come back, but they’ll greet you like they hadn’t seen you for ages.

I spoke to some of their mothers. They go to the square at 5 every day, give or take half an hour, because the mothers are working, usually until 8, when they come to pick their children up. The square is teeming with kids but also with pensioners, who keep a very close eye on the activities and shenanigans there. So this is more or less a free childcare centre for working mothers. These are kids of parents not only from Latin America or Africa, but also from Spain. They were all happy to play with their friends, but were also pleased to see their mothers at the end of the day.

On Friday morning, the landlady showed up with her husband and an assistant to clean the place because some new arrivals were on their way. We had caused a little bit of wear and tear, which we owned up to and offered to rectify, but they said it was all part of the adventure of staying in a holiday rental.

We sped off to A Coruña, a little under 2 hours away. Here’s a surprising fact: Galicia is about 30% larger than Wales or Slovenia. Galicia is about 30,000 square kilometres in size, and Wales about 21,000; Slovenia is roughly the same as Wales in area. You can drive for miles and miles here and not see a single soul. It is immense, and yet it is only the seventh largest region of Spain.

A Coruña, a city on the Atlantic coast of Spain, was not a disappointment – I loved the seafarer atmosphere there, which I felt was missing from San Sebastian. We only really had a couple of hours to enjoy it, so we took a little walk along the sea front for Dainoris to give us his best moaning performance: we simply love his “I’m hungry!” routine, especially when you offer him some bread and he will only accept sweets. We also find his “I’m tired!” act while we are out walking such a special piece of art, because as soon as we see a playground, he suddenly has enough energy to power a Tesla for the day.

We wanted to make the most of the three hours we had there, so we had lunch in a place which seemed like it catered to workers. It had a decent enough menu, but the only person waiting on all the tables had the memory of an easily distracted octopus. He forgot some part of our order or brought out things to wrong tables. In the end, the tourists on the table next to us arrived later and left a long time before us having eaten and drunk just as much.

We had a much-truncated walk where Milda took over the “I’m tired” routine. I told her “well in a couple of minutes at the car, you can have a rest for another hour and a half”, which was a very unpopular reply. I could tell the kids were getting ratty and exhausted from all this moving around, so I hoped we could have a few good memories in the next place.

At about half past five, I pulled up at the bakery where Rocio, our hostess, worked with her family. She gave us the keys and told us a few things about the place. The apartment was just a minute’s ride up the hill, nestled in the trees near the sea. That’s for another time.

The Great Iberian Road Trip, Days 15-22: Keeping The Peace

Being on a semi-working holiday in Spain can have its advantages: your timetable writes itself. Things in Spain often don’t get going until later on in the day, leaving plenty of time earlier on for work. In the morning, the kids play fairly nicely together, or they watch Clan, a TV channel run by RTVE for children which lets the adults get on with adulting. I generally cook lunch for about half past one, and afterwards we go out for the rest of the day. We might go to the beach, or to another town, or somewhere extra special. But up here in this evocative landscape, there is so much to see.

On Saturday 13 July, Bonny Bee had decided to take the day off to give us an earlier start. The evening before, I was looking around for things for us to do, when I came across a restaurant opposite a beach on Google Maps. The reviews seemed to be quite favourable, so I decided to call them first thing on Saturday morning in the hope there was still space. The price of eating out in Spain is still relatively reasonable, so everyone still does it, although it’s becoming less frequent and more of a special event.

The woman on the phone said they had one space left at one fifteen if we wanted it, so I accepted. It was just over half an hour away by car and we got there a few minutes late. The scenery on the way was enough to slow us down, but it was mainly caused by kids’ delaying tactics. I don’t get it – they scream and shout about wanting to do stuff; go out, play, swim, run around, but as soon as you announce that the toothbrushes are ready and the clothes are set out, they run off as if we’ve just announced another evening of watching Newsnight or maybe filing taxes.

As Google Maps Lady announced our arrival, we surveyed the area. It was nearly overflowing with cars. The car park, which was not small, had just three or four free places. Their owners were somewhere else, because there was nobody. The place wasn’t deserted – there were some people in the restaurant grounds, but unless everyone drove two or three cars there, a justification for the full car par was not forthcoming.

The restaurant itself was a vision of sheer magnificence; it was exactly how I envisioned a Galician restaurant when I came here. Under some low plane trees were rows of picnic-style tables, big enough for a family of ten. There was a small hut with a pool table, table football and air hockey which attracted quite a mixed crowd. For the preteens, there was a playground with swing, slide, and mini pirate ship. The main house was a one-storey tavern-style edifice with a chimney and seating for the winter.

But the menu was the star: there were mainly “raciones”, which are like snack-sized portions of food. Looking over it, the dishes we ordered kind of chose themselves. We asked for veal churrasco for two, which look like belly of pork, but are slightly thicker. When it came, I realised we had more or less half a cow sitting on the table. How on earth we were going to manage all this was beyond me. The children had what I can only describe as a field’s worth of potatoes and as for the salad, it was a garden on a plate.

Some restaurants ooze appeal for their fancy cuisine, others for their décor. Some have a great atmosphere, and many have efficient staff. All of these things might make your dining experience memorable. However, sometimes it’s worth thinking: what is it that actually makes the whole experience worth it? I would say, apart from the above, it’s the attractiveness of the food put in front of you. How much does it make you want to eat it? And here we have a prime example of this. I’m not a big fan of pretentious displays of micro-managed dish design. I admire art, but generally we come away from fancy restaurants with their meagre portions looking for the nearest place to get a plate of chips or a decent kebab.

The scenery, the atmosphere, the happy food, the cheery staff, all combined, made it one of the best dining experiences I think we have ever had. Afterwards, we had a magnificent dessert, coffee and a little rest before we crossed the road to the beach.

And what a beach it was. Forget Ha Long in Vietnam, away with Ko Samui in Thailand. This was by far the most breathtaking of beaches. I couldn’t wait to get in my swimming gear and head out into the calm, almost lake-like sea. Bearing in mind this was the Atlantic Ocean, I was awestruck by how serene the waters become in these inlets and bays.

All around me was sloping greenery and rock eroded by millennia of violent winter storms. On the hillside to my left were some rather modest yet well-looked-after houses. They were probably all sadly rentals, left idle for the months containing the letter R. I would have jumped at the chance to live in such a place, but yes, the owners of those houses were probably right – I doubt this area is much fun in January.

The children all played so nicely on this beach. It was an absolute joy to watch them splashing around in the calm waters, building things in the sand, and having such an immensely happy time. When we had had enough, we offered the prospect of a return to the restaurant for a drink, and they gladly joined us for a last visit. We will return before we leave here.

On Monday 15 July, we went to the northernmost point in Spain, the Faro de Estaca de Bares, about an hour’s drive from our place. It’s a windswept promontory with a car park, basically. Milda wanted to stay in the car, so Bonny Bee, Livia and Dainoris joined me on the short but complicated walk to the top of Spain. The day before, Spain had defeated England in the final of UEFA 2024 in Germany, so coming to this place had a certain poetry.

When we got to the grounds of the working lighthouse, an old curly-haired dog ambled over towards us. Now, as we know, Livia absolutely hates dogs. Dainoris has slowly become more friendly towards them, but he’s still a little unsure of the bigger variety. He seemed OK with this one. But then, from the direction of the rocky outcrop, came what I can only describe as the principal reason why Livia hates all dogs: self-indulgent and insensitive dog owners.

For anyone who actually owns a dog – please, please be aware that not everyone finds Fluffy, Bodkin, Spike, Toto and Tyson as amiable as you do. So over the hill came this moody, seething dog attached to its shabby owner, barking, snarling and generally behaving as if it owned the place. Then shabby owner’s wife and her more compliant dog came over. The two looked at each other and the gormless curly-haired dog who was shambling towards the angry dog as if greeting an old friend. They realised that if that ditzy old mutt made it to its furious counterpart, there would be a massacre. We were about to witness the canine version of a Mexican standoff. But the woman owner had other plans: she dragged her more docile pet and the old pooch across the heather and gorse until the guy and the frothing, four-legged apoplectic paroxysm raged past.

In all this, Livia had run all the way back to the car, closed the door, and refused to get out again. This made me really sad, because she missed out on a really stunning view and some very interesting flora. Dainoris came, and he relished the place. There are lots of sheer drops though, and with a howling wind, the whole experience made me nervous to the verge of panic because he was even more curious than normal. I wonder if it was intentional – he’s usually very cautious and almost petrified of precarious locations, so this was an interesting development.

After a trip to the playground in Viveiro, we arrived in San Cibrao a little after 8 in the evening. We were greeted by the haunting music of the local folk group. The melody they were playing sounded remarkably similar to an Ennio Morricone piece for the film The Mission. I hardly needed to guess which came first… doing some research, Morricone tried hard to formulate a piece that encompassed folk tunes, religious pieces and Spanish-style guitar music that would represent the various groups of society of the time depicted in the film. I wonder if Morricone had ever been to San Cibrao…

After a couple of rest days, on Thursday 18 July, we made the decision to go to the Playa de las Catedrales, the most treasured beach on the northern coast. So much so, you have to book to go there. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and it’s easy to see why. Curated by a generous number of lifeguards and guides, you go to a website where you enter the details of all the people travelling with you, including their national numbers, which I found quite an intrusion of privacy, just to visit a beach.

But once you’re down there, it’s a joyful and exciting place. There are dozens of nooks, mini-caves, arches, and rockpools for kids and adults alike to have a tremendous time. The weather was stunning, and made the experience even more intense. When the tide had gone out, the curators put up some temporary poles with rope barriers allowing us to walk further along the cliff edges, between the arches, and marvelling at the views. Taking my smartphone into shallow waters was risky enough, but I started getting cocky when I actually ventured into the sea with it to take some pictures from further out. The waves were quite high and strong – this was the Atlantic, after all – but I somehow managed. And here’s the contrast with Dainoris – he didn’t want to go. He kept complaining about wanting to stay on the same area of beach where we had put our stuff. I can’t quite comprehend it.

Coming away from there was a difficult experience for us all, especially for Dainoris, who made his feelings known. We all have certain places where we feel a particular attachment, either because of its characteristics, or the experiences we had there. Places which feel like home, even if they aren’t. I think this was Dainoris’s first taste of being somewhere that felt like a Ground Zero. I have a few of those.

On Saturday 20 July, we took a trip to Lugo. Bonny Bee wanted to see the Roman walls and walk around the city. It was over 100 km away, and would take an hour and a half to get there. I have to say it didn’t really set the world on fire, but the city is pleasant enough. It was a Saturday afternoon in Lugo, but it reminded me of a Sunday afternoon in Trier. Despite the abundance of some really pretty restaurants, the kids wanted pizza. As we hadn’t had one for two weeks, we decided to indulge them.

The place we entered looked like it had been designed by a Renaissance hairdresser with a penchant for things that easily break. There was glass everywhere – such a perfect place to take three immature hairless baboons for lunch. In the end, nothing happened, but every *clink* and every *clonk* caused me to lose a little piece of sanity. The meal cost a fortune too – we could have eaten elsewhere for half that price – and I constantly wonder why we acquiesce to the whims of little beasts. I think, quite brutally, that we do it because it’s easier than disagreeing. We should just lay down the law, but I don’t think we have the energy.

Afterwards, Dainoris wanted to go to *yet another* playground, but we wanted to see a bit more of the city. Telling Dainoris that he can’t go to a playground is the equivalent of any punishment you might administer. And here is where the two positions collide: on one side, we want to keep a lid on the adverse infantile reactions; on the other, we want to follow part of our own programme too. So the soundtrack to our exploration of Lugo city centre was Dainoris crying loudly. We don’t give in, but nor does he. He can cry for hours until he gets what he wants. It’s a form of breaking down resistance. Milda’s way to get what she wants is to just refuse anything else and look confused. She is brilliant at it. Livia is generally the most compliant of all three, but when she really doesn’t want something, you’ll know about it. Her way of showing disapproval is to tell you for hours, sometimes several days, that she didn’t like the way you performed.

I decided to send them to a playground and sit in the café terrace next to it. Dainoris found it for us – he said “look, there’s a lovely café for you, next to the playground!” I’m hoping this is a long-term trend: looking for solutions, being a glass-half-full person. Because at the moment, he’s definitely more glass-half-empty. In fact, he’s more glass-will-be-full-again-when-I-steal-your-juice.

So we are entering the final week in San Cibrao. We hope to see a few more things, but it’s time to visit some of the places we liked the most. I think we will be back one day, but we just don’t know. So we have to make sure we make some strong memories.

EXTRA PHOTOS:

The Great Iberian Road Trip, Days 9 to 15: Where Is Everybody? At The Football!

We had been in our rental for five hours and we hadn’t seen a single soul from the terrace windows off the living room. The place was deserted. There are cars around, there are plants in the common gardens, the grass is freshly mown, but there was no sign of life. It was like the Truman Show but without the fabulous weather. We arranged the children into various rooms to sleep, and after a number of shenanigans involving the exchanging of rooms and some typical bedtime screaming, the little monsters finally succumbed to their own sagging energy levels. I settled down to watch the second half of the Portugal v France quarter final, but before I switched on the TV, I paused for a short period of total calm and glorious silence.

And then…

AAAAuuuuUUUUrrrrRRRRrrrrRRRR!

This low-pitched, unsettling lupine howl from what seemed like a distant location deep in the forest made us sit up with a start, stabbing the silence, smothering the stillness and penetrating the peace. I looked at Bonny Bee, she looked at me, and in that instant we knew one thing: we wouldn’t be taking any family walks in the forest during our stay.

I watched the thrilling and appropriate end to Cristiano Ronaldo’s overhyped and tarnished international career and switched off the TV with a grin as wide as Lionel Messi’s trophy cabinet. The howls had subsided, so I decided to go to bed. Next day, we decided to explore the village some more. Because of Bonny Bee’s working schedule, rarely anything takes place before lunch, so we parked in the centre and went in search of a place to eat. For such a small place it had a large number of cafés and restaurants, all of which were full every day.

One place we settled on was to appease the children. For the last week we had eaten local food, so they deserved a little decadence and we found a place that served pizza and burgers called Las Titas. We sat on the terrace in our summer clothes and froze. We have truly become Valencianos. For that reason, we made our way inside and found a large table with benches each side in that typical US diner fashion. It had an Arizona gas station motif and the décor contained parts of cars and road maps. This type of place could have been in a much larger city, so to be in this village was very impressive. And the atmosphere was rocking – on a Saturday lunchtime.

The pizza section of the menu would make an Italian gesticulate most vigorously and probably walk out, kicking open and slamming the door shut as they left. I love the way the Spanish troll the fastidious Italians by murdering their hair-splitting culinary pedantry and doing new things with them. For example, I had a Pizza Tejana, a Texan take on the round Italian-style grilled open sandwich, which contained the usual tomato-based sauce, mozzarella and oregano, but also had some pulled pork with sriracha, chicken taco, bacon, onion, and a smoked cheddar-bacon sauce. It sounded so abominably delicious, or deliciously abominable, that I had to try it. After ten minutes, it was the first dish to reach our table. The children looked with envy at my pizza and asked for some. I reluctantly handed out three pieces, but despite having eaten only a little over half of it, it was much more filling than I could have imagined.

And it was delectable, truly a sign that innovation can win out over stubbornly clinging on to a form of superstitious nostalgia. Despite being a case of blasphemy the equivalent of taking a ton of pineapples scraped off a thousand Pizza Hawaii and dumping them on the grave of Gualtiero Marchesi, we weren’t on Italian jurisdiction, so we felt smugly satisfied.

The staff in Las Titas were extremely efficient, happy, kind and knowledgeable. And I think we will be back a couple more times. We stepped out into the village and went for a walk along the bay. San Cibrao is a lovely place, and the people so kind and welcoming. There is a saying: the Spanish will welcome you with open arms but they will never wrap them around you. In Valencia as well as here, we have met and spoken to hundreds more people in the short time we have been here than we ever did in Saarburg over fifteen years, but in both places, there is that same kind of reluctance to make any further steps towards sealing the connection.

You will nearly always meet casually and by chance in places you often frequent, and not through making any formal rendezvous, like to go to an event or restaurant. My theory is that in countries like the UK, Australia and the US, people move houses pretty often, so they pick up friends all the time, whereas in Old Europe, people generally stay where they are and the bonds they made in school and in their neighbourhood remain their friendship circle for life.

It was a cold, murky day, so we just hung around the village at the playground and the café next to it. The weather was going to improve the next day, Sunday 7 July, so we decided to make the most of it by taking a trip to a place called Foz and then on to Ribadeo. Foz was another quiet seaside village with little going on, but it had a few enticing restaurants near the promenade. We settled on one with a menu that was as hilariously translated as it was enticing. Their “Pig trotters with tickets” seemed like just the… ticket. And who could resist “Hake stuffed with hedgehog”? The most original surf ‘n’ turf menu item ever.

After a hearty meal consisting of Fabada Asturiana followed by some Secreto de Cerdo and potatoes, I invited everyone to jump in the car and head to Ribadeo, to see something new. The town itself was another maritime treasure, but of course we had to go to the playground. Luckily for us, there were a couple of decent cafés right next door. After a good hour of pushing swings, cleaning puke, returning other people’s toys, and saying “wow” after every act, I decided to take a look at Google Maps to see what I could entice them away with.

I was saved by an island with a lighthouse and some spectacular views just 10 to 12 minutes away. It was a little difficult to prise everyone away from the huge round basket swing, but I managed to; and after a little tour of the block, we sped off for the lighthouse. And like many aspects around here, it blew us all away. “Dramatic coastline” is an overused phrase, but in this case, it suits perfectly.

Over the millennia, the Atlantic Ocean’s violent, often turbulent temperament has carved many coves, bays, islands, channels, slopes, and cliffs out of the land, creating the spectacular seaboard we see today. We walked from the car down a narrow road, round a bend and there it was: a concrete and cast-iron bridge over the sea on to an island containing a historical lighthouse. A new one had been constructed nearby, but the old one had been converted into a café and guesthouse. I checked out the price for one night, and let’s just say it was the same as about a week in the place we’re staying in.

The children have started to appreciate places with views, and it’s so gratifying to hear their observations. We took a lot of photos and created some new memories.

The rest of the week was mainly spent just hanging around the village and taking a few short trips to other towns. I would typically cook a large lunch at home, then we would go out for cake and a release of energy. One of the most memorable visits was to Viveiro, a town a little way westwards. The old town, with its whitewashed buildings in narrow streets reminded us of Andalucia. And the newer part, stretched out along the inlet, reminded us of Lucerne in Switzerland.

Really, northern Spain is so varied and yet so meagrely visited that it is a joy to travel through this landscape. I really get the Caminantes and the reasons why this lush, verdant setting prepares the pilgrims for their arrival in Santiago de Compostela. All along the coast, from San Sebastian to Vigo, you can stop the car virtually anywhere and stand there for a while contemplating the view. So imagine walking it – for someone like me, who loves an area of outstanding natural beauty, I would take months to get there.

Another day, while Bonny Bee was working, I took the children to Burela, a town in the opposite direction, for cake, drinks, and a visit to quite an elaborate playground. We entered a café on one of the main streets, and sat at one of the rustic-looking tables. The woman served us with the cakes we ordered, but it didn’t end there: she kept bringing us little delicacies from the region for us to try. A very kind lady.

We headed to the playground, which when we arrived at about half past three was deserted, was at five teeming with as many kids as you can imagine, from all walks of life, all types of backgrounds, all various shades of skin, with one objective: to have immense fun with a football.

Dainoris tried joining in, but was a little clumsy – he’s still a bit of an English speaker, but his ability to understand Spanish is fine. When he starts Spanish primary school in September, we hope he will have little to no trouble at all.

Milda is a different kettle of fish: she could make friends with absolutely anyone. In fact, I think we should send her to the Middle East as a peace ambassador – she would be more successful than any fuddy-duddy politician.

Livia, on the other hand, is very approachable, but doesn’t have the social skills to keep people wanting to hang around her: she is more likely to start getting a little boisterous and end up playing alone somewhere else.

I was heartened by how easily these kids just let us newbies settle in to their environment. In the end, I was getting their ball out of the tree and chucking the kids about like we’d known each other for ever. Great bunch of lads.

And this is what I’ve learned since I’ve been in Spain: despite all the political rhetoric and the doom-mongering, Spain is a successfully multiracial society. This was richly demonstrated by the 16-year-old footballing prodigy, Lamine Yamal, whose mother is from Equatorial Guinea and father from Morocco, whose name I have seen on the backs of about half a dozen boys and young men in the last week or two.

Spain also seems to have set up its education system as well as possible too. Every school I pass looks so appealing for kids. Very often, there’s a lot of outdoor space, there’s plenty of material to pick from, every school is at least bilingual, and I don’t know many under-forties who don’t speak much English. In fact, every kid whose parent has interacted with us, has been challenged to speak to ours in English. We are attempting the same with our children in the other direction, which should be much easier, considering Spanish is all around us, but it’s taking a little time… In any case, the next generation of Spanish citizens will be just fine, if current governments can sort out some of the mess and mistakes of the past, keeping the extremists at bay.

On Sunday 14 July, I went for a walk after the Euro 2024 final, won by Spain, and another thing struck me: Spanish people are by no means to ostentatious in their flag-waving. In other countries, like the Netherlands, England, Germany, Poland, Italy, I have seen flags go up everywhere when the football championships roll around. It has become almost socially unacceptable in England for a pub not to drape itself in a huge Cross of St George or daub “It’s Coming Home” across the façade.

Here, flag-waving is very understated indeed. The number of flags I have seen, or at least noticed, would fit on fewer than both hands. But boy, can Spanish people celebrate… and it was during that walk that a few fireworks were set off about a kilometre away, which in turn set off a bit of dog barking. And it was while I was passing a modest row house that I heard from within the garden the very same haunting howling noise that had been mystifying me every night for a week. I don’t know what dog it was, but the acoustics created by the three walls of the property caused this rather meek-sized dog to sound like it was something that should be roaming the moors devouring sheep and inspiring filmmakers. But instead it was probably a little annoyed by the distant fireworks and missing its owner.

It’s funny how a certain landscape can play tricks on the imagination…