Riding to the festival at the end of the world

After a sunny afternoon on the beach with Solenn and David, who we last saw at Carnival in Recife, Albane dropped me in the Carrefour carpark on the outskirts of Dinan. Not the most auspicious start for a 330 km tour of Brittany! After the galettes and cider from the night before, I was feeling sluggish and not keen to start, but it was sunny and I had my pride (what little still remains) to think about.

It would mean nothing if I listed the towns that I passed through or tried to explain the pain in my legs as I spent ten hours on the bike fighting my way through 130 km of French countryside. With mountain bike tyres unsuited to road riding and a lack of fitness, it was simply a matter of endurance and stubborness. I reached a municipal campsite at eight in the evening and ate a huge pizza in the interests of carbohydrate-loading.

Despite the campsite being all but empty, a campervan still parked next to me and I woke in the morning to snoring. A good shake of the tent and a bit of clanking with the bike was my revenge! I left at eight and rode for another 10 hours stopping to check a couple of famous churches with incredible carved granite 'calvaires' depicting events from Christ's life. I overdid it at the end of the day with a couple of long loops out to the coast, but made it the Herveau household by half seven in the evening. A sign by the bell said 'Beware of the dog' and I was about to ignore it and step into the garden when a hound the size of a horse rounded the corner at speed. Jacques called him off and I was prompty introduced to the rest of the zoo - a donkey with a wonky ear, an antisocial horse and a decrepid terrier with white hair that had turned yellow.

After a shower, we ate supper and Jacques, who sailed the world as an engineer with a French marine research centre, told me his list of favourite countries - Norway for the scenery, Brazil for the women and Tonga for the friendly people. It was a warm night and my legs were twitching in bed after two days of riding.

I left at nine the next morning and rode to Brest and beyond. The 60 kilometres to Le Faou went quickly, despite my back aching, and I met Albane for lunch. We ate crispy galettes stuffed with ham, egg and cheese (a so-called 'complete') and we then drove towards the 'Festival at the end of the world'. A quick siesta to prepare ourselves and we met Bertrand, Karine and Marie-Lou in the carnage of the festival.

In its eighth year,the festival sprawls over fields with three stages, 17 car parks and a crazy campsite with 55,000 people enjoying a mix of music. We watched a singer from Cabo Verde, an Israeli-American beat box group, a Nigerian brass band, a Japanese drumming group and Jethro Tull. We drank organic cider and mixed with the old and young and drunk. It was a really good festival and I hope that it survives the inevitable commercial changes that take place as an event grows beyond its boundaries.

We slept in the car and left at 6 the next morning. The rain was starting to fall and I put the bike in the back of the car and drove back to Albane's parents' house with no sense of guilt.

Nothing to declare........

Somiedo Park

After a couple of days' heavy rain in Galicia, we were glad to get into sunny Asturias. With the van full of bikes, surfboards and accumulated junk, it wasn't very pleasant living in the damp van. Someone had mentioned a huge hunting reserve (yes, such things still exist in Spain) called Somiedo, so we turned inland. After a couple of hours, a workman stopped us saying that the road was closed until 5pm. We looked to the left and saw a swimming pool. That was our enforced stop sorted.


We reached the town of Pola de Somiedo in the early evening and, after a week without showering, Albane insisted on stopping at the campsite. I spluttered a bit at the extravagence, but after a 10 minute hot shower, I wasn't quite so vocal. We checked out an exhibition on the Brown Bear project in Northern Spain and picked up a map and trail information from tourist information before dinner.




The next morning was as clear as we could have hoped and the heavy dew evaporated as soon as the sun warmed the ground. We drove up a winding road through a stunning landscape of hay fields, peaks, rocky ridges and woodland. It was somehow softer than the landscape in Courel. A Dutch van coming the other way smashed my wing mirror and didn't stop, but we picked it up off the road and fixed it back in place. There was a kaleidoscopic view. Having parked, we walked up the valley on a dusty far track, gaining height steadily, before reaching a lake at the base of an amphitheatre of cliffs. We settled in the shade of a bush and the afternoon passed quickly in the warmth and silence of the mountains.


On the way down, we passed a sign beside a field reading "If it appears to you that you can cross this field in 8 minutes, be warned that my bull, Brinco, can do it in 4". There was no bull in sight, but we weren't going to risk it!




After a second night at the campsite, we set off early into a nearby valley and started climbing a gorge before the sun got too high. Laid with cobbles, it was an old access to the high pasture, though it would have taken a fair amount of effort to pull a cart up or to get a laden cart down. We took it slowly and reached a dirt track, contouring up the main valley, after about 45 minutes. In the alpine pastures, we saw old stone buildings called branhas where the hay was laid to dry and animals were housed during the cold winter months. The roofs, thatched with brrom, looked like the droopy hats of smurfs.



We wandered through clusters of branhas and cut hay fields before settling in the shade of an oak for a long lunch. Albane had a little siesta while I pondered the tough lives that people must have led in the region before roads, electricity or running water. It was a lovely landscape in the blue sky of early summer, but I imagined that the wet autu,n and cold winters would be more challenging.



From Somiedo, we headed back to the coast and, despite the surf being clean and the sun shining, it was just too small to tempt me in and my decision was vindicated as we watched surfers sit for an hour in the shallows waiting for 'the wave' that never came. A detour for wine in southern France meant that we arrived back in Brittany with nearly 100 litres of wine. All for personal consumption........

Northern Galicia

Sunset on the north coast













Long live the A Team!











Cabo Ortegal













Praya Ponzos








Un escargot.............









Dawn patrol








Maria and her two sheep







Maria's mum and the tradtional Galician way of life













Octopus, mussels, whelks, razor shells, clams, scallops, peppers, croquetas, squid, langoustines, pig's ear, empanada, tortilla, whitebait, sardines, ham, cheese and chorizo.

Walking in Courel, Galcia

The car hire desk at Santiago airport issued us with a brand new Citroen C4 (only 7 km on the clock) and Albane found the deserted walking staff of a pilgrim, so we were set for the hills in fine form. We were headed east towards the isolated region of Courel. Keen to slip into the Spanish way of life, Dad and Tom stopped at a bar en route for an Estrella Galicia, the local beer. An hour later we stopped for the set three course 'menu del dia'. Dad looked like Christmas came early when the waitress put a bottle of cold red wine in front of him and told him it was included in the 8 euro price.




Albane decided on a shady siesta after lunch and the rest of us walked a fisherman's path along the river Ulla. Tucked in the bottom of a narrow wooded valley, the water twisted between rocks and over waterfalls. On the way back to the car, a bright green snake slithered across the path in front of us. We drove south towards the Ribeira Sacra, a wine-producing region, and stayed the night in a restored stone house.


We ate in a small room with dark wood and a huge open fireplace. Lit by three lightbulbs with filaments like butterfly antennae, we ate locally cured meats, fresh cheese and steaks of young Galician beef. The elders drank the local wine.




We detoured via the deep gorge of the Rio Minho, its steep slopes covered in vineyards, before a long drive on narrow, tight roads to the heart of Courel. The brand new car felt more like a liability as we swung round the blind bends and into nasty potholes. The scenery changed from a flat landscape of fields into the more satisfying cleft of a mountain valley. We passed a vast slate quarry and climbed every further into the Courel range.


Late in the afternoon, we walked a path following the Rio Pequeno upstream and through the forests of Sweet Chestnuts for which Courel is best known. They were planted to protect the villages from wind, for firewood and for the chestnuts which were the staple food. Smoked in small stone buidlings dotted in the woodland, they were essential for surviving the winter in a region where roads did not arrive until the second world war. The path marking was useless, as was our map, and we got totally lost. We were eventually forced to retrace our steps.


It was a long drive to our B&B, bu the old woman welcomed us with fried fish, wine and small glasses of the local firewater. Tom took to the rough stuff, preferring it to the smoother more refined version. Our last day's walking didn't start until 3pm with Suso acting as our guide. We crossed the main ridge, hitting 5000 feet (I think) before descending steeply through Sweet Chestnut forest. The mix of small hay fields, grazing animals, managed woodland and steep valleys was lovely. A glimpse into the past.


We spent the night in a small, restored village which was pretty, but which lacked soul (as well as people). After a short walk to strech the legs, we headed towards Lugo, stopping for lunch in a village on the walker's motorway which is the Camino de Santiago - a queue of people shuffling their way west. We preferred the quiet authenticity of Lugo and its Roman walls; a 2 km circuit for runners and the less serious - we watched a woman in tight lycra smoking her way round the walls, a mobile phone clamped to her ear.


On the last morning, we wandered round the fruit, vegetable, meat and fish markets of Santiago. Like happy tourists, we bought cheese, honey, cured ham and chorizo. A good trip with a mix of walking and seeing Galicia. The next destination could be Somiedo (see next blog entry).

Ortigueira and Galicia

Somewhere on the north coqst of Galicia. Along a 10 km stretch of coqstline, there are at least nine different surfing beaches. The secret is finding the one that is working.






Maria's birthday party in a rented house near Ortigueira. We ate tortilla, pimientos de Padron and kilos of Shitake mushrooms. When Suso ate a hot pepper, I told him that we drank Fairy Liquid in England to cool the heat. To everyone's horror, the doctor grabbed the bottle and squirted the green liquid into his mouth. He grimaced slightly and then swallowed. We hadn't told them that we had substituted the washing up liquid with 'licor de hierbas', a powerful spirit. Suso went on to drink a litre of it and he suffered the consequences.





I broke my toe surfing. I think the board hit it in a wipe out. I got no sympathy from Albane.







We parked the van one evening near Playa Esteiro and watched the sun peek momentarily beneath the cloud base before dark.











The Carribbean of Spain. You might not believe it, but this really is a beach in Galicia.







Some kind of flower. Maybe when I am 50 and into these things, I might know the name.







We thought it was going to be a quiet lunch at Belen's parents, but with her grandmother (who showed me a huge scar across her midriff midway through the meal) and the brilliantly named Papa Moncho, it was never going to a sedate affair. We ate octupus, prawns, pimientos de Padron and empanada. A typically Galician meal with theit typical hospitality and generosity.



At the entrance to the Ria of Ferrol, Suso gives me a history lesson. The red wine from lunch is still coursing through my veins and all I remember is that no one ever conquered the fort protecting the entrance to the harbour. That and the fact that my beard was sparser, but bushier than Suso's. And maybe just a bit ginger too.








The founders of modern day Galician folk music, Milladoiro. Great diddly, diddly music with crazy bagpipes, a harp and guitars.








The aftermath of Ortigueira festival.








The Galician seascape.








These Basque loonies were playing in the street at Ortigueira. The guy with the bagpipe also played a hollowed out ram's horn. I had no idea what they were saying, but Fran christened their lmusic as Punk Folk.





Fran, Albane and Belen on a rainy walk one Sunday.

The Orpin Tour

Orps arrived in the rain having forgotten his waterproof jacket (in addition to his sleeping bag - "I knew you'd have one" he smiled), but the sun broke through by lunch and we ordered the set menu at a restaurant in Santiago. There were no vegetarian options, so we ordered a mixed salad and it arrived with tuna. Orps ended up eating bread and a yoghurt for lunch. In the evening, after a refreshing surf at Playa Louro near Muros, we cooked vegetables and rice washed down with beer. Funny how alcohol is a vegetarian product. Would there be less vegetarians if they weren't? Orps would certainly find it difficult.

The Coast of Death stretches from Noia (west of Santiago) to A Corunha and it is a little bit like Alaska with some eccentric characters eking out a living. We stopped at a potter's house in the shadow of O Pindo, the Celtic Mount Olympus, and considered his collection of weird creatures. Orps was particularly taken with a llama that had a pair of pert breasts on its back. The blurb, written by the potter, wondered "who wouldn't like to ride on her back?". We didn't buy, but left and pushed on to Playa Rostro where we had the beach and surf to ourselves. Orps showed me how he bodyboards.

The next morning, as we ate breakfast by the beach where we had camped, a Guardia Civil car pulled up and the officer asked who was camping in the tent. It was the Englishman. He was nowhere to be seen; crouching behind the van out of sight. We talked our way out of a fine and, when he had gone, told Orps he could come out of hiding.

After a day on the beach playing frisbee and surfing (well, I surfed at least....), we met Suso in A Corunha in the evening and went to a bar where we ate dried meat and Orps ate cheese (and drank wine). Back at Suso's, Orps was required to taste Suso's collection of flavoured firewaters - all of them vegetarian.

We had headaches the next morning, but mine cleared after a surf at Campelo where, according to my diary, I was "seriously scared". Orps wisely decided to stay on land (again). We went to the folk music festival in Ortigueira that night drinking calimoxto (50% coca cola; 50% red wine) and got to bed by half three. At six thirty, we were up and I was driving Orps to the airport. I bet he was glad to be going back to work.