Back to Galicia

We have been traveling, and I started this post when we were still in England, visiting family. (Post about that to follow when I finish the posts about Spain.) We got back late last night (actually early this morning), but I had promised to get back to two events in the earlier part of our Galicia visit, and here they are:

David and Pepe

David and Terri

                                                    FIRST: The Friday after our arrival -- April 11th -- We went with friends Terri and David to what is known as a "casa rural," but also includes a restaurant/bar and week-end entertainment. The name is Torre Vilariño, and it is co-owned by a cool hombre named Pepe. Alas, I don't know his full name, but here he is with David. And here is the website, which has lovely pictures of the rooms where one can stay, as well as the restaurant and patio.

On this particular Friday, two main musicians were playing. We had dinner first (around 9:30), and the music started around 11:00 p.m. One of the musicians sang, both of them played, and they went through a whole gamut of popular songs from the 80s -- in English. They were really good. Here are a few pictures:

The main duo.

The singer.

Hearfelt guitar work.

Occasionally a third musician joined them and sang along. They had a good sound! (I wish I had gotten the name of the group.)

Jamming!

The servers thought they were
pretty good, too. Singing along
with great gusto!

Susana, server extraordinaire!

The SECOND event was the Fiesta Medieval that takes place each year at the end of Semana Santa (Holy week). It used to only take place on Saturday, but now it has grown to include the entire week-end. We went both days. We love this fiesta, many locals dress up in costume, and small skits and re-enactments are put on in main streets and plazas. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves:

Processions . . . this is a special
Galician bagpipe called a gaeto.

A medieval damsel . . .

A  verrry young knight Templar!

From one of the plazas.

And the little ones on burros!

Entertainers on stilts.

I don't know how
they do it!

This woman was really into
her role. 

The ever-present
witches.

I suppose this is where the knights
collected their helmets. 

To defend their king and queen.
(Isabel and Ferdinand).

King of Castile y Leon.

  

Another feature of this festival each year that we particularly enjoy is the showing of the raptors -- hawks, falcons, owls, ravens . . . Two trainers have taught them to do tricks, and they are always fascinating to watch, not to mention what beautiful birds they are: 

Such beautiful birds! I think they said
this unusual raven (with the white stripe) is distinctive to Galicia.

The horned owl is so commanding!

But this hawk is pretty
impressive, too. 

One of the trainers and a snowy owl. 

The other trainer watching
a falcon he released.

They finished off the show
with an interval when people
could pet one of the birds.

And who would you guess is petting that snowy owl?
Yup. Yours truly. It was really an awesome experience.

So there you are: Two "local" events we thoroughly enjoyed. I hope you enjoyed them too.

How about you? Do you enjoy historical fairs and festivals? Have you ever petted a wild bird?

A Wonderful Fado Singer

With blog problems these past few days, I'm behind in my posting. Last Friday was a fabulous evening at Torre Vilariño (a later post and photos will come), and we spent both Saturday and Sunday in Monforte enjoying the Medieval Faire (again, a later post and pictures will come).

First, though, I have to share a concert we attended in Quiroga by a fabulous fadista (Fado singer)— María do Ceo. She's very popular here and famous worldwide.

I first heard María do Ceo sing last June when she gave a concert at Rectoral de Castillon. At that time, I bought the CD shown to your left, and I blogged about it HERE.  It was an unforgettable evening, and my first exposure to Fado. (That was when Rajan and I we were taking turns with trips while the other nursed our ailing dog during his last days.) When I returned home and played the CD for Rajan, he loved Fado. Attending one of her concerts became a priority for this trip.

We went with friends Craig and Melanie, who hadn't heard Fado before, and they became converts, too. At the end of the concert, we gathered with others to get María do Ceo's autograph. She is a remarkable performer, and very down-to-earth and unpretentious after performances. Everyone was having their picture taken with her, and she welcomed us to have our picture with her too. What a treat!

After a long concert, she
still had buoyant energy
as she signed autographs.

She took time to converse
with people who lingered.
A truly gracious person.

She remembered my name (from FB
and the early blogpost.) A very
modest celebrity who makes you
feel welcome and at home.

I enjoyed introducing her and Rajan.

She was kept pretty
busy with autographs.

You can go to her website and see her CD's HERE.

We bought a new CD that we enjoy as much as the first one, and now I wish I had bought more. Each one is unique. The one we bought isn't shown in the Discography section on her website above. But there are many performances by her on YouTube at this site, so you can get a feel for her singing.

Fado, as I mentioned in my earlier post, is a distinctive art form of Portugal, similar in one sense to American Blues, in that it is emotional and comes from deep in the heart and soul. But Fado has a variety of influences, one of them Moorish, and you can hear that in the warbling minor trills in some of the songs. The word itself means "Fate." Usually the songs are about deep yearning and thwarted dreams. Some of them can have a cheerful beat, but it's a fatalistic cheer, dealing with life's outcomes. It's not depressing, though. It's a response to what life deals you. I'm hooked on Fado, and if I can find another Fado concert, I will. Unfortunately, we will be gone before María do Ceo's next concerts in Galicia, but we will watch her schedule and hope to hear her during our next visit in the fall.

María do Ceo is from Portugal, but she lives in Ourense, Galicia. Her songs are in Portuguese, but her singing is quite popular all over Galicia. Gallego, or Galego, or Galician—all are accepted names for the Galician language—is a sister language to Portuguese, so all her songs are understandable to Galicians. I read recently that Gallego and Portuguese share 85% of vocabulary. Our neighbors, in fact, have told us if we knew Portuguese, we would be able to understand Gallego.

Meanwhile, I hope you will visit her website and enjoy the video site HERE. I strongly recommend "Lela" and "Negra Sombe". But, really, they are all good.

How about you? Do you have favorite music genre? A favorite singer? Please share.

Beautiful Galicia, Otra Vez

It's hard to believe that we arrived in Spain 8 days ago. Time flows by in a different way, even though we bring work with us. The trip is long, we arrive exhausted, but we have rituals along the way. The trip is more than 24 hours (door to door) and spans two days. We leave Saturday morning, have a long stretch in Dallas/FW Airport, where we have battered and fried green beans and a glass of beer at TGIF, waiting for our next flight. We arrive in Madrid around 10:30 a.m. Sunday, and have a lunch of smoked salmon, bread, and wine, then fight sleep while waiting for our connection to Santiago de Composetela. We arrive in Santiago a little after 5:00 p.m. and collect baggage. Our friends, Terri and David,  meet us, drive us back to our house in Trasulfe, where we "turn on the house" (electricity, water, gas-tank connections, etc.), then we all go out to eat at a restaurant in Monforte, called O Pincho, where we split delicious raciones. (Rations are smaller than dinners, bigger than tapas.) 

Here's a picture of Terri and David from last summer (we haven't yet gotten around to pictures of friends on this trip.) As soon as we got to O Pincho, we woke up and had a great time catching up on news, eating rations and drinking the house wine. The next morning, waking with the sun (about seven-ish), eating lunch at 2:00 p.m. and dinner around 8:00 or 9:00 p.m., Rajan and I realized we'd fallen into Spanish time right away, with very little jet lag!

Friends and neighbors tell us it was a continually rainy winter, but our first few days were sunny. There was the usual morning mist and intermittent sprinkles through the day that vanished in afternoon heat. Still, we felt free to bring out our patio table and chairs. Then things changed.

The small pasture across the sheep
path in front of our gate. The thin
tree in the foreground is a volunteer
peach tree that so far doesn't bear.

A neighbor's pasture below ours.
See those little fruit trees? The storm
blew all the petals away. No fruit
this year. 

After four beautiful sunshiny days, on Thursday afternoon a fierce hailstorm struck. First thunder rolled and roared for about an hour, and then hail beat down for about thirty minutes. This was the result :

These aren't snow drifts. Just lots and lots of hail.

I wanted to put a video here, with all its great sound effects, but I couldn't get my video to play. (I've sent to Google for help.) But this should give you some idea.

On another note, we've been making a point to walk at least two miles a day. In about a year, I want to walk a portion of the Camino that ends in Santiago. (One item on my bucket list.) I won't be able to make it to Santiago, but a friend informed me that if you walk 100 km, you can get a certificate. That's about sixty miles. Next spring I'd like to do about 30 miles, and then in the fall of 2015 do the second set. So far, a few times we've parked at Gadis, one of the big supermarkets at the edge of Monforte, and walked up to the Parador.

Here's the Parador, seen from the Gadis parking lot.
Below is Gadis, seen from Parador, to give you and
idea of how far we walk.

Gadis, where we parked, seen from the Parador: See the thin pale blue
stripe about two thirds up in the middle? Above the center green? To the
left of that is a teeny yellow sign. That's Gadis.

Other walks have been along country roads. Beautiful nature walks, really. This will give you some 
idea: The picture on the left is an example of most of the scenery here. 

The picture to the right is of a pretty church in Toiriz. We don't have pictures yet of the stork nests, but on tall posts nearby, there are two separate stork nests, and we sometimes see one of the parent birds feeding the baby birds. All you can see is the upended body, so we aren't quite sure how big those babies get. Hopefully we'll get a good photo sometime soon.



And now, it's time for a walk! But stay tuned, because the next post will be about a wonderful Fado singer we heard Sunday night. 


Meanwhile, if you have special items on your bucket list, I'd love to hear what they are.

Home Again, But Full of Memories

                                         
We didn't get in as much walking as we had planned, but the picture on the left is the toolshed belonging to Antonio's farm down the winding dirt road that leads to the paved carretera. Most of the time we were there, we had this kind of weather. It only changed the last week, and even then it was cool and crisp in the mornings, with fog and mist, and some rain, and clear and sunny in the afternoons. Then rain again at night.

The last week was a bit of a scramble for us, full of good-bye lunches with friends, preparing the house for closing, and having meriendas one evening with neighbors, and seeing to a car inspection, etc. But we did squeeze in a trip to the area near Celanova to have a hello-and-goodbye visit over lunch with friends we hadn't seen for about 4 years: Elvira introduced us to her boyfriend, Jose. We met her through another friend years ago and thoroughly enjoyed her. Manuel we had met years before in Celanova, through the same mutual friend, in fact, Jacki Edmonds. The meeting place was to be at a restaurant in a small village fringing Celanova called O Cristal, at 2:00 p.m. When we woke up, though, to the rain-washed morning, we thought,"Uh-oh, it's going to be that kind of a drive."


But the Force was with us. At breakfast, looking out the galeria window, what to our wondering eyes did appear . . ? Nope, not
St. Nick, but a promise of the day to come:


So off we went, and it truly was a beautiful drive down winding roads that parallel the River Miño on the way to Ourense, befor it is joined by the River Sil. On this route, vineyards terrace the hills. The sloping banks are terraced with bright houses and tiled roofs.

We set out especially early this time, because we remembered another visual treat: the amazing village of Vilanova dos Infantes -- one of the most immaculately maintained villages I've seen in Galicia. The homes always seem freshly painted, the gardens beautifully tended. People were friendly, too, as they are everywhere in Galicia. And we were even visited by a cat who acted as if he were the town mascot.
                     

We also were intrigued by a set of statues and a plaque. It was historical, but, not knowing Gallegan, we couldn't find out why. The horreos are also a historical landmark in Galicia. These are the granaries raised off the ground, looking like little houses on mushroom-shaped pillars. The mushroom shape is to make it impossible for mice to get in. 

And then it was on to O Cristal, our meet-up place. We remembered a very interesting church from previous visits, right next door to the restaurant. My husband loves to photograph the churches around Galicia for their beautiful stonework, but what intrigued us about this church was the outdoor ampitheater and chapel: 

This separate little building that looks like a hermit's cell I believe is a shrine instead to the Virgin of  the Crystal (Virxgen do Cristal) who is honored in the Fiesta held September 15th (which we missed.) I obviously need to do some research on this church. It's fascinating.

This small building goes back to 1185. You can see the shrine inside in the third picture.

 
Then it was time to meet our friends at the restaurant, where we had a wonderful time catching up on four years of news.

An afternoon to remember. To your left, Manuel, then me. Behind me is Elvira's partner, Jose. Then Elvira, then Rajan.

Now, back in Sacramento, I can't help thinking what a wonderful invention the camera was! As much as I love art and all the wonderful portraits and landscapes, there's no way painters could work fast enough to capture so many images. What is your favorite memory that you like to capture with a camera?