Most people know the Knights Templar from legend: secret treasures, hidden societies, a medieval order shrouded in mystery. What surprises many visitors is that Galicia has a real, documented Templar history, not just folklore. Stone churches, fortified crossings, and even…
When we moved to Galicia, we were used to iDEAL for pretty much everything back in the Netherlands. Splitting a dinner bill, paying a friend back, sending money to family, iDEAL handled it all. In Spain, the equivalent is Bizum,…
Moving to Galicia meant moving into Spanish, whether we were ready for it or not. Bureaucracy, the bakery, the neighbors, the vet. None of it waits for you to feel confident. So from early on, we built a routine around…
Drive far enough into Galicia’s interior and the road eventually narrows, the signal drops, and the villages start to feel less like places people live and more like places people used to live. A roofless stone house here, a collapsed…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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 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…