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Published: August 2nd 2010
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Almost every city and village in Spain has its fiestas - festival days when vendors and musicians set up shop around town and big public events are scheduled, such as parades, concerts and even bullfights. Some towns' fiestas gain notoriety for a particular, unique event; in Pamplona, the running of the bulls separates the San Fermines festival from all others. And in the little town of Catoira, where we spent most of yesterday, the yearly fiestas reach their apex with the annual Viking attack.
This marks the 50th year that people in Catoira have dressed up like Vikings, piled into giant wooden dragon ships, navigated up the river to the remains of the Torres del Oeste (Towers of the West) and stormed the beach in mock attack. Of course, when we read about it a few months ago as we prepared for this trip, we knew we had to experience the Romeria Vikinga for ourselves.
And so, yesterday we did.
Catoira was a short trip from the Pazo de Lestrove, and easily found with the help of the GPS. Parking, on the other hand, proved trickier.
Vanessa had just maneuvered the Ibiza into the tightest of spots
along a steep, narrow road when the owners of the closest house came out and asked us not to park there, because it would block their way out later in the day. Vanessa had no choice but to back all the way down the car-lined hill to the main road (glad I wasn't driving!). Spots along the road close to the Torres were at a premium, and we ended up on the other side of town in a small lot that a local couple was charging visitors 5 euros to use. With an official Romeria Vikinga bandana thrown in with the price of admission, it didn't seem to bad a deal.
The small park where the Torres del Oeste stand is accessed by a narrow stone walkway elevated above some marshy bogs. We followed the growing crowd along the walkway until it ended and opened up to the sights and smells of the medieval village where the viking attackers would soon make their appearance.
There were already men and women dressed in viking garb dancing about to drum music as their leaders - two guys on tall stilts, faces and bodies painted ominously black with long, bearskin capes
- ran around working the crowd into a fervor. They juggled fire sticks, spit alcohol through torches to blow bursts of fire into the air and demanded patronage in the form of wine and beer from any passer-by with a bottle or cup. I'm still amazed at how these guys on stilts, having had quite a bit to drink already, could run through the crowds, spinning around, bending down to grab drinks, jumping up and down on one leg and NEVER ONCE FALL DOWN!
There were also rows of tents housing artisans, food vendors and long rows of tables for communal dining. It had the feel of a medieval festival, with a lot more drinking.
Catoira is proud of its history as a defender against marauding Vikings from the north, who would apparently try to make their way up river to plunder Santiago de Compostela. The Torres were built here as a bastion from which to repel the invaders. What remains of them is only a shadow of their original, imposing structures - but that's ok, because the modern "viking invaders" pose somewhat less of a threat than the forefathers.
As the dragon ships approached we could
see that they were crammed full with men and women cloaked in animal skins and slathered with mud (apparently, Vikings are a dirty folk). Most had the traditional dual-horned headgear and were waving swords (real metal ones!) above their heads. Some even carried huge wooden club-hammers. What looked like blood dripping down many of their faces was red wine, which some of the men carried in wooden casks on their shoulders.
One by one they splashed out of the boats and stormed the beach, screaming and running uphill to the clearing in the park where the men on stilts had been whipping up the crowd. Photographers - professionals and others - got close to take pictures and came away spattered with mud and red wine. The vikings were generous with their wine - one gladly poured a stream into my mouth from a giant ram horn. In fact, the most aggression we witnessed from the heathen invaders was when a wine cask would run dry. Then it was thrown to the ground and pounded on with the giant club-hammers until it broke into pieces.
Once the vikings had moved from invasion mode to "damn, all this attacking has
made me hungry" mode, the entire crowd seemed to shift toward the food tents, where smoke and the smell of sizzling chorizo (spicy sausage) and pulpos (octopus) emanated.
We've come to the conclusion that Galicia is the Texas of Spain, in that everything here (at least the food portions) is bigger. The previous night's dinner was the first evidence of this, and the food stands at the Romeria confirmed it. Wheels of bread the size of the tires on the Ibiza were stacked on the tables next to doughnuts the size of the steering wheel. Between the two of us we could barely finish one piece of a ham, cheese and tomato sauce covered flatbread.
Best food of the day, however, was a reasonably sized sandwich of a halved chorizo sausage on a crispy baguette. We did not, I admit, venture to try a plate of pulpos (octopus), which was boiled in huge vats then cut up into bite-size chunks by men with sharp scissors. Olive oil, salt and paprika were sprinkled on top before serving.
Other than food and a few cups of the local wine (even the red had a bit of fizz to it),
our only purchase was a hand-painted Romeria Vikinga clay wine goblet, which was conveniently equipped with a string so you could hang it around your neck. With your purchase, you also got your goblet filled with red wine, which was a nice touch.
After a few hours we made our way back to the car and returned to Lestrove for a siesta. God, I love siestas and would love to institute the mid-day nap as an institution back home. Who's with me?
After a few hours sleep, Vanessa and I headed back to Catoira for the evening's festivities, which included a live band in the town's main plaza. As we parked we recognized many of the vikings from earlier in the day, still decked out in full costume, stumbling a bit as they perused the few local taverns.
We had some bocadillos (baguette sandwiches), coffee and the local beer, Estrella de Galicia, at a sidewalk table on a side street, then made our way to the band stage. The crowd there was older and a bit more sedate than the vikings and their followers from earlier. We decided we were more in tune with the viking crowd,
and headed up the street the the Taberna Vikinga, where commemorative posters from previous Romerias docorated the stone walls and men in horned hats and animal skins lined the outdoor tables.
A few hours of people-watching later we made our way back to the car, but not before appropriating several Romeria Vikinga promotional posters from the sides of walls and dumpsters. Unfortunately, many of them had been pasted up and were impossible to tear off without ripping, but Vanessa managed to find a few affixed with tape that should look good on my classroom wall.
Tomorrow we leave Galicia, headed east for Ponferrada - home of an impressive Templar castle - and then the city of Leon, where we'll stay in one of Spain's famous paradores - historic buildings purchased by the government and converted for use as luxury hotels. The Hostal de San Marcos - originally built by the Knights of Santiago - was once a hospital and, if I'm remembering correctly, a monastery. More details in my next entry ....
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