bay of biscay and galicia ::: part IV

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the last leg of our northern spain trip seemed pretty quick, nonetheless, it was not short of sights i´d like to spend more time at.  galicia is extremely famous in spain for several reasons, one being its amazing and rugged coastline and its top class seafood which is not expensive at all.  however, as we were on a sort of tight schedule, we could not dedicate the time needed to ride all  the way along the coast down to vigo.  instead we took the shortcut riding inland.

2010 is "año santo xacobeo", which happens every year on the 25th of july (patron saint of james, son of zebedee) falls on a sunday.  for this reason it is a very popular and significant time to walk the st. james´way, the pilgrimage to the cathedral in santiago de compostela.  it was quite a common thing to see these pilgrims walking by the road towards santiago, some in search of pardon, others to achieve the goal as a personal challenge with no spiritual significance.

not a bad plto have lunch, somewhere on the way...

another significant place was padron, where the famous capsicums and the saying "coma os pementos de padrón: uns pican e outros non" come from.  these have to be one of my favourite finger foods ever!!!  watch out for the eventual spicy one if you are not used to spicy food.  the surprise factor has turned this delicacy into a fun and social culinary experience :)

once we hit pontevedra we had the ocean back in sight... this time the atlantic.  the "rias baixas" offers a very particular way to see the sea, similar, in a way, to that of the scandinavian fjords at a much, much smaller scale, but indeed beautiful as few places i can think of on earth (this is me being biassed i guess).  the way the sea hits the land in this region is what makes the conditions ideal for a great variety of sea food to be found here.  this trip is not for someone on a diet or people with anisakis.

the 4 heroes

as we felt the end of our trip was getting closer exhaustion was getting to us, and watching some of the greatest sunsets i´ve seen, over an ice cold beer, made the arrival in vigo just perfect.  now all we had to worry about was the absolutely fantastic bollywood themed party i really hope starts happening every single year!

playa de américa, nigran

nigran and baiona are full of places to have a nice quiet drink by the sea, i´d like to recommend playa de américa or patos.

sunset over nigran

make sure you put this destination in your bucket list and you wont regret it.