Vila de Cruces (Merza, Carboeiro) and Silleda, Galicia – Saturday Afternoon Adventures

Saturday, May 16th, 2015 

It was 2:30 in the afternoon by the time I made it out to the La Coruña airport to pick up my Avis rental car, a cute little white Fiat 500.

 

Beep, beep. Cute car, but not much vroom, vroom.

One thing that surprised me this year is that I met several people who had actually been to Arizona.  When I visited Galicia last year and would mention that I was from Arizona everyone knew where it was, often saying “ah, el Gran Cañon”, which they knew from TV and movies.  But this year, I was surprised when a gentleman working at the airport started telling me about his experiences visiting Arizona, Route 66, the Grand Canyon, and Southern California in his annual trip to visit the United States.  He even planned to return to Arizona next year to travel all of Route 66.

With the destination plugged into my Map app, I set off in the trusty little Fiat, a car I would drive for the next 15 days.  What was supposed to be a quick 1 hour and 15 minute drive from the A Coruña airport (located in the A Coruña province of Galicia) to Casa Goris (my hotel for the evening, located in a little place called Merza, between Silleda and Vila de Cruces, in the Pontevedra province) somehow took me a few minutes more than 2 hours.

It took me 1 hour to get to Santiago de Compostela, and another hour to Casa Goris. Perhaps a couple of wrong turns … and I did make a stop for the bathroom (and directions!).

 

But the views were beautiful – photos taken while driving 65 don’t do justice.

A little before 5 p.m. I finally arrived at Casa Goris, a charming and quirky little family run Casa Rural.  A casa rural is a rural B & B, usually (almost always) family run.  There are so many charming casas rurales in Galicia (one website showed more than 700!), I was so happy to get to stay in several more during this trip.

Front entrance of Casa Goris.

My cute second story room. So charming!

After dropping off my bags, I went to meet up with José from Turismo Verde de Galicia.  Turismo Verde de Galicia (Turvegal) is a group whose goal is to share information about the history, culture, and traditions of Gaicia and to highlight otherwise little-known special places that may be off the beaten tourist path. Those were exactly the types of places we spent the rest of the afternoon visiting.

One of the traditions that I was excited to see was the very unique handmade wood and leather clogs (zocos) at eferro.  Elena Eferro is a third generation shoe maker, still working in the old fashioned methods to make these gorgeous, playful boots by hand. They have recently celebrated 100 years in operation!

The business was started in 1915 by Elena’s grandfather, Perfecto, who sold the clogs door to door until 1936 when the shop moved to the area where the current workshop is located. While these boots fell out of fashion for a bit in the late ’70s, they are now all the rage – a blend of classic traditional design with modern style and innovation (those patterns! those colors!), not to mention being very comfortable. Elena wasn’t in the shop on this Saturday afternoon, but we had a very nice visit with the folks who were minding the store.

This way to eferro …

Gorgeous handmade boots all lined up.

How cute! Little “piggies”!

Actual treadle sewing machine.

 

All the tools of the trade!

 

Ready to put me to work?

 

John Deere boots! Should have gotten this pair to take back to Iowa!

Our next stop was a short drive away, the beautiful Mosteiro de Carboeiro, an historic late Romanesque / Gothic style Benedictine monestary founded in the 10th century (the year 936).  It may have been in its heyday between the 11th and 13th centuries, but I’d argue that it had a pretty good year in 2015 when it was featured in Enrique Iglesia’s video, “Noche y de Día”.  As a matter of fact, the video does an excellent job featuring many beautiful areas of Galicia (there are so many!), and is worth a look:

Full video for “Noche y de Día”, Enrique Iglesias: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=m3We7p78XTo

Short video of Enrique thanking Galicia: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VnyuJYerWBc

Exterior, entrance

Beautiful interior

 

Interior

The light is amazing in here – too bad I only had my iPhone.

 

More exterior views.

View from the second floor tower.

 

Exterior

Beautiful hiking opportunities around the property, along the Deza river.

Our next stop was along the river Ulla, to see a picturesque Insua, a river with little islands. There was a stone marker on display with a lovely poem written by the famous Galego author Xosé Neira Vilas about the river and this area, his homeland.

The river Ulla.

Beautiful ode to his homeland, a poem by Xosé Neira Vilas. “Water, stone, sun and wind …”

It turns out that Mr. Neira Vilas lives just a short distance from where we were, in the village of Gres.  So, what the heck, we stopped by to see if he was at home.  It turns out he wasn’t, but it’s a very nice spot with a beautiful view.

Sign on the Xosé Neira Vilas Foundation building, which houses a small museum, library, and events space.

Beautiful views!

From every direction beautiful views!

 

I bought a copy of Señor Neira Vilas’ most famous book, “Memories of a Peasant Boy”. It’s written in Galego, so I haven’t quite read it yet!

By this time, it was getting to be evening and we had tickets to see a show in the nearby town of Silleda.  Artist Luis Davila (whose daily cartoon strip appears in the  Faro de Vigo newspaper) and actor Carlos Blanco have a show that they perform periodically called “Menu del Día”.

 

“Menu del Día”

The format was something I’ve never seen before.  The artist, Luis Davila, was seated at the drawing table using the computer to draw (from scratch or expanding upon an existing cartoon) images which were displayed on the screen behind actor Carlos Blanco, who had the microphone and spoke to either the cartoon itself (explaining or expanding upon the joke), or relaying his own stories of growing up and being Gallego.  One particularly memorable skit had Mr. Blanco donning a typical housecoat worn by the Galician grandmothers as they work around the house (speaking with a grandma voice and everything).

I should probably mention here that this entire performance was in Galego (Galician) language.  While my Spanish is somewhere between “fine” and “I get along ok”, I only understand as much Galego as I do because it’s like a cross between Spanish and Portuguese (I majored in Spanish and studied Portuguese for two years in college).  Even with that, this was a fast-paced, energetic show.  Immediately afterward, I reported understanding about 50% of it.  As we told more people about the show, I fessed up to understanding less and less – it was probably more along the lines of 30% that I understood from a language perspective, but the energy and history and emotions being conveyed transcended language.  See the final photo with these two artists dancing along with traditional music, and you get the idea.  It was a fantastic show and the whole crowd truly enjoyed it.

The stage is set. Mr. Davila’s drawing table on the left.

There was a LOT going on here, not that I understood much of this one, but I think the phallic symbol speaks for itself!

 

Here, Carlos explains and expands upon the humor of some of Luis’ cartoons, adding in some of his own anecdotes of growing up in Galicia.

The show took place just days after BB King and a local Galician man called “Zapatones” died. Zapatones was well known for dressing up in a Pilgrim costume around Santiago de Compostela to greet and take pics with arriving Pilgrims. This cartoon shows these two beloved entertainers taking selfies and having a great time in heaven.

 

The two artists together: Luis Davila (l) and Carlos Blanco (r). Those kilts!

Spectacular ending – traditional music and dancing!

It was 11 p.m. when the show ended.  We stopped to say hello to Mr. Davila (José knows him) in the lobby and then, well, dinner of course!  The restaurant, O Refuxio, was fortunately less than 100 meters from my hotel.  I’ll tell you all about it in the next blog post!

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