Advertisement
Published: January 4th 2017
Edit Blog Post
My parents came to Europe for the first time in their lives, and we got to hang out after a year of being apart. I met them in Vigo, where we went to rent a car. Then, we drove to Santiago de Compostela, where we had an AirBnB for 3 nights.
The first evening I took them for typical Galician food in Santiago de Compostela. We had some wine, Estrella Galicia beer, and tapas. They were pretty tired from their long travel, so that was the extent of our exploring that day.
The first full day together we headed towards Ourense, but stopped in Ribadavia on the way. It’s one of my favorite small towns in Galicia, and my parents loved the atmosphere as well. We were lucky to have a day of beautiful weather, and the town’s saint festival happened to be taking place too. Drinking coffee and tea in the main plaza was perfect for my parents to experience the best of small-town Galician culture.
Next, we went to Ourense (my city from last year) to pick up some of my things from a friend. We hung out in the
Termas de Outariz, then took a walk up the Río Lonia. For lunch, we went to my old neighborhood, O Couto, to have some cheap tapas in a tapería (you can choose 3 tapas for each drink you order—this means you can basically have half a meal for a little over 1 euro).
Santiago was central to our destinations, and it has a good bit to see as well. The only fault in our plan was that the city, especially the old town, where we were staying, is not car-friendly. Finding free parking was a huge hassle, and that part of town’s one-way streets were really aggravating. We had two evenings to walk around, but looking back, I wish we had spent slightly more time in Santiago in the daytime.
The second full day, we went to the park Fragas do Eume. We stopped in Pontedeume to get some information about the park and to buy some picnic lunch for our hike. You have to park near the entrance of the park, then reserve times to take the free bus farther inside. It was just as magical as I had expected from seeing pictures.
The coolest area in my opinion was the Rumor de Sesín, which is below the Monastery de Caaveiro.
After the park, we stopped in La Coruña on the way back to Santiago in order to drop off some of my things in my new apartment and see the city. We went up the Tower of Hercules, which is a great value with historical significance and a good workout. For dinner, we ate along the harbor near Plaza de Maria Pita.
Our last morning in Galicia, my parents went in the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. I’d already been there twice, and after a while I get ‘cathedraled out’. They took longer than I expected, and both were impressed.
They had liked Galicia, but now it was time to go on to Porto. After a stressful time getting back to the airport to drop the rental car back off, we eventually caught the bus (train?) to Porto.
I love Porto, and I was so happy that my parents got to see it too. We mainly did a lot of walking around the typical areas I’d been in before. My
dad and I also went on a tour of the Ferreira wine cellar. It is the only one in Porto still owned by Portuguese. We walked in when they were giving a tour in Spanish, so we just hopped on. We certainly missed out on some info, but it was still good value to see the place, some of their displays, and sample the wine.
In addition to exploring Gaia more this time, my dad convinced us to hop on to the last streetcar/tram of the evening to go to the beach near Passeio Alegre (let’s ignore the fact that it was almost dark and again, that it was the last trolley). He enjoyed the ride, and we had an interesting walk along the water and slightly anxious wait for a bus back to the city.
I had been planning to say bye to them when they flew from Porto to Italy. I’d just spent the entire summer in Italy, and I thought they could enjoy it on their own. However, in the end they convinced me to come with them. So they took their flight to Venice and visited it on their own.
I, meanwhile, took a bus to Lisbon to fly from there and meet them in Florence.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.09s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 14; qc: 25; dbt: 0.0697s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb