The Great Escapes:

We have managed to squeeze in some nice trips around so far.

Because we are in a small town, we can easily walk to really nice pine forests, a river (with trouts and fishermen, although it is hard to say who catches who) and a 12th century monastery.

These grounds have been the introduction of the little fellow to the wilderness. He is particularly curious about grabbing leaves:



Last week, we decided to drive further inland towards Ourense, and we ended up in a beautiful town called Allariz. All the movies that need the feel of an old galician town are shot there.



It was truly charming, specially the old quarters. Allariz nests in a quite valley with a mellow river running through it. In the past, the river hosted several mills and a tannery.

Today they function mostly as restaurants. We had lunch on the old tannery. It was a really pleasant combination of food and view. The other 2 restaurants are also on the river banks but we can not say much about their food.

The mills were used mostly in baking and pastries. The region is somehow known for these. "Pan de Cea" is bread from a small guild of bakers in Cea. They have managed to sell their bread to other parts of Spain and Europe. Which is quite amazing given the shelf life that supermarket bread has.

Our next trip will be to O' Cebreiro in the high mountains of Lugo...