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.