Vultures of Galicia
On clear days, we don’t have to go looking for vultures at all. We just have to look up. From our own house in the village, we regularly watch them circling on the thermals rising off the canyons nearby, wings…
Michel
What Nobody Tells You About Galicia’s Rain
Everyone who moves to Galicia hears the same warning before they arrive: it rains a lot. And it does. But that single sentence does not really prepare you for what the climate actually feels like once you are living in…
Magosto: Galicia’s Chestnut Festival
A note on how we wrote this: magosto is celebrated all over Galicia, but it is especially strong here in the south of Lugo, close to where we live. What follows on the local flavor of the celebration comes from…
Caldo Gallego: Galicia’s Traditional Farmhouse Soup (with Recipe)
When the mist rolls in off the Atlantic and the rain settles into the valleys, there is one dish every Galician household turns to: caldo gallego. This is the region’s classic farmhouse soup, built from white beans, potatoes, greens, and…
Fervenza de Brañas: One of Galicia’s Most Beautiful Waterfalls
Tucked into the parish of Santa Mariña das Brañas, in the municipality of Toques (A Coruña), Fervenza de Brañas is one of those waterfalls that keeps coming up whenever people talk about the most beautiful cascades in inland Galicia. The…
Queimada: The Galician Fire Ritual That Wards Off Witches
A clay pot glows with blue flame in the dark. A long wooden ladle rises and falls, trailing fire. Somewhere in the smoke, a voice recites something in Galego about owls, toads, and witches. This is queimada, and it is…
Why Estrella Galicia Is Spain’s Fastest-Growing Beer
A beer from a small corner of northwest Spain has quietly become one of the country’s biggest brands, and it did so without ever really leaving its regional identity behind. That beer is Estrella Galicia, and its rise says as…
Wild Horses in Galicia: Where to See Them and What to Know About Rapa das Bestas
Galicia has no shortage of wildlife, but few animals feel as symbolic of the region as its free-roaming horses. You can find them on misty hillsides, beside quiet country roads and high above the Atlantic coast, usually in small groups…
Pena de Núñez: A Hidden Climbing Sector Near Taboada
Just northwest of Taboada, in the Lugo province, a quiet quartzite outcrop rises from Monte San Cristovo. Locals call it Pena de Núñez, and if you love climbing off the beaten path, it is worth knowing about. A Small Sector…
The Trasno: Galicia’s Household Spirit Explained
Every culture seems to have some version of the same idea: a small, mischievous spirit that lives in the house, causes minor chaos, and is more of a nuisance than a threat. In Galicia, that figure is the trasno. If…
Monte Faro: Galicia’s Sacred Mountain and Its September Romería
Monte Faro is one of those places in Galicia that doesn’t announce itself. There’s no big sign on the main road, no tour buses in the car park. You more or less have to already know it’s there, which is…
Galicia’s Four Provinces Explained
We get this one a lot. People assume that because we live in Galicia and near the Ribeira Sacra, we must live in Ourense. It’s a fair guess, since Ourense province holds a large part of the Ribeira Sacra and…
What Wildfires Do to Galician Nature
This year we watched two sizeable wildfires burn uncomfortably close to our village. Close enough that we packed a bag “just in case,” close enough to smell the smoke for days, and close enough that we started paying much closer…
August in Galicia: Tourists, Traffic, and the Places That Go Quiet
August changes Galicia. It’s the one month where the region’s population seems to double almost overnight, and by now, living here, we’ve learned to read the signs: the supermarket queues get longer, the N-VI fills up with cars carrying license…