Be a Galician pilgrim in Spain

Rustic Galicia in north-west Spain has striking Santiago, beautiful beaches and a very modern villa, says Jo Fernández
Very modern: the villa (Picture: Adrian Vazquez Gonzalez)
Adrian Vazquez Gonzalez
Jo Fernndez20 July 2015

Such a vast and diverse country as Spain can still throw the odd surprise at visitors. One such is Galicia. This autonomous region in the north-west of the country is rugged and mountainous, with a rich Celtic heritage.

The remote region is most famous for the Camino de Santiago pilgrim trail, but I hadn’t come to traverse that medieval route. Along with our respective broods, my sister and I had wanted to explore this area and a holiday home seemed the best bet. In total there were eight of us, and I long ago discovered that self-catering is strangely worth the effort, more relaxing and infinitely cheaper.

Accommodation is typically rustic since this is historically one of the poorest areas of Spain. Villa operator SJ Villas has only one Galician pad on its books. But what a pad. Castro Baroña is a private four-bedroom beach house in a small hamlet in the province of La Coruña, built by London-based, Galician-born architect Iñaki Leite for his wife Ana and relatives, who live locally.

It’s a modern architect’s vision, combining straight lines, wide glass panels, concrete and wood. Architectural books in the television snug reveal some inspiration: notes pencilled by photographs of concrete-and-glass structures. Leite has won multiple awards for its design and energy efficiency — the house holds the highest rating possible and includes a cooling system.

Imposing: the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela where pilgrims travel (Picture: Tim Graham/Getty Images)
Tim Graham/Getty Images

Raw materials include rock, which rises protectively up the back of the house, and local bateas, floating wooden platforms made of eucalyptus and used in the local mussel production industry. In a neat architectural symmetry, these recycled versions, used to create shade, mirror the working bateas visible from the house; the building also appears to float in some places.

My partner, nine-year-old daughter and I had flown to Santiago de Compostela, the nearest airport. Capital of Galicia, the seductive medieval city is best known for the quarter of a million pilgrims, young and old, who converge here each year. You can’t miss them — happy souls with sticks and rucksacks. Just off a late flight, we were in search of some tapas. I asked an old man who insisted on leading us all the way — in the opposite direction from his original path — through winding, arcaded stone streets to find it. Several mountainous plates of calamari later, we set off on an hour’s drive along the autopista flanked by greenery, then small towns.

Fascinating: Camino de Santiago walking sticks (Picture: Ken Scicluna/Getty/AWL Images RM)
Ken Scicluna/Getty Images/AWL Images RM

My nephews arrived just after us, three boisterous boys keen to clamber around the house. But here a word of warning — the “floating” metal staircase up to the top-floor bedrooms requires incredibly well-behaved children. My partner had a shake in his voice on discovering eight-year-old Louis hanging off one of the steps. It’s a beautiful home but perhaps suited to older — or more static — children. The open-plan layout includes a kitchen, on whose spotless aluminium surfaces lay a typical Galician tuna empanada (like a giant flat pasty) made by the housekeeper’s mother. A delicious welcome. High-spec features include Egyptian cotton sheets, an elegant Kaldewei float therapy tub in the master bedroom and hotel-style toiletries.

Our days quickly adopted a holiday routine. We ate prawns bought from the supermarket in the nearby fishing town of A Pobra do Caramiñal, fried with garlic and oil — I can still smell them now. For more indulgent trips, there are 11 Michelin-starred restaurants in the region, and local seafood features on most of their menus. We pottered down to the beach, where old women washed mussels in the sea and a giant stone resembling a Henry Moore sculpture provided a jumping point for the children at high tide. In different configurations we beachcombed (the children), read (parents) and inched into the cold, clear Atlantic Ocean for a dip (everyone).

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But it does rain a lot here — the lush greenery is testament to this — which means finding things to do away from the beach. We took hours to find the Pedras River rock pools, a local beauty spot — stopping to ask directions which strangely varied from never having heard of them to pointing us in the wrong direction — only to find they were minutes from the house. At last, the 30-minute hike through overgrown wooded scenery revealed a fairy-tale set of natural pools and waterfalls formed by the river’s descent to the estuary.

One evening we drove the half-hour or so to Castro de Baroña, an excavated Celtic fortress set on a rocky outcrop with panoramic coastal views. The ruins themselves, while probably the most impressive in the area, are almost secondary to the beachside location where naturists are said to sunbathe. Like many of my favourite ruins (Tulum in Mexico springs to mind) I admire ancient builders who thought of the setting first. I imagine those naturists do too.

Details: Spain

easyJet (0330 365 5454; easyjet.com) flies from Gatwick to Santiago de Compostela.

SJ Villas (020 7351 6384; sjvillas.co.uk) offers a week in Castro Baroña from €2,950. spain.info

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