Thursday 12 February 2009

Last Wednesday ( 11.02.2009 ) in Spain


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View from Monte Santa Tega to the South: Portugal´s coastline.

It usually takes us 30 minutes to drive from Porto to Caminha, where we hop on a ferry to cross the Minho River and enter Spain. The funny thing is, that when you cross the border, nothing really changes: the villages and people are exactly the same. The architecture, churches small markets, shops, even the language is very similar. Galiza is in fact not so different from northern Portugal.

This Wednesday our plan was ... well, we did not have any specific plans for that Wednesday. First thing after leaving the ferry we climbed the Santa Trega mountain. This is a site of an ancient Celtic village. The views here are absolutely marvelous. To the south there is a Minho river that separates Spain from Portugal. To the north you can see the rocky Spanish coastline dotted with red roofs of La Guarda town.


View to the North: La Guarda town.


On our way back home we noticed that many new wineries are being opened. Seems like Galiza wine industry is booming. Their Albariño vines, which have been nicknamed "The Wines of the Sea", are absolutely first-class. They are the descendants of Portuguese vines called Alvarinho. To be denominated as DOC they must contain 100% Albariño grapes. These single-vine, single-grape wines I like most.

We ended up buying some bottles of Albariño and a plate of Spanish curado chesses. The dinner at home was going to be great.



Ferry from Caminha to Spain. The view from the top os Santa Trega mountain.

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