Life in Galicia

On Saturday our mail woman dropped the long awaited Amazon US order in our doorway. A nice bag full of books. Thus reading late we woke up suitably late. Nevertheless we had a ”Scarce Swallowtail” having breakfast at the same time so felt not too bad.

After this we headed for the market in Monforte. I have written about this before, market days are on fixed numerical days, so if its a Sunday its still market day.

 Parking is always a challenge, well that is if you have a car. These guys don’t have this problem. 

These markets still have a “real” feeling. From meat (dead and alive), fruit ,cloth to a nice shiny distillery, it’s all there.

After indulging we set off for a bit of driving in direction of Ferreira,here we stopped briefly at the bakery (Terraza) to pickup some small and sweet cakes for later. From Ferreira we took the road to Fronton. This first leads up high, with some brilliant views and later drops down via an abandoned village to a bridge across the river Sil.
Before crossing we parked and walked up to the San Esteban station (you can drive up, but may have to park on the rails….). Here you find a small restaurant and we were lucky to get a table for a spot of lunch. 

Having had sustenance on good Galician fare, we ambled back to the car and drove in direction of Os Peares along the river Sil. Half way, on the other side, we could see San Cosmede, the end of the walk Pombeiro to San Cosmede. From there we took the fast road to Monforte. Arriving home we admired our now nearly finished kitchen and retired for a spot of reading onto our “beach”.

Just a perfect Sunday.

Expat

As written before feiras (ferias in castellan) and fiestas not necessarily are on weekends. Our local Feira da Rosca is dove tailed on the first market day in August. This, in Sober is the 12th.

Normally Sober is on the quiet side. August sees nearly all houses inhabited as lots of Galiciens come home for the holidays and there are some tourists as well. So with a market and a feiria on top Sober explodes into life. So that you don’t miss it, at 10am there is Disparo de 13 Bombas del Palenque. Big bangs between you and me.

Rosca (del Reyes) according to Wikipedia goes back to either the three kings or probably the Saturnalia’s from roman times.

Either way, there is a huge variety of this round or oval shaped cake. Here in Sober it’s made from flour and as Saffron is a bit on the expensive side yellow food coloring. The cakes are round and go well with whatever one fancies on top. Cheese, ham, fruits (dried or fresh) everything is possible. The central well was  decorated the show the theme. Local artisans exhibit and sell alongside the normal market.

Entertainment was provided by the Grupo de Gaitas - “Os Albarinios” - from Monforte de Lemos and folk dancing by the “Lemavos”.

Whilst this is going on the children made their own rosca. Our alcaldesa Raquel Arias Rodríguez was happily lending a helping hand or maybe tried to keep some sort of order. Nevertheless once these cakes where done and each child had its own named plate, they all trot off to the local bakery so they could have their very own rosca.

The last high point of the Feira da Rosca was the public tasting. In the background lots of slices of Rosca with a slice of cheese had been prepared. These where marched to the well and feeding tasting got underway.

Than it was time to find a seat in either one of the tents or at the local bars to sit down for the important meal (national dish - fresh pulpo…. but there are also other choices) as well as more talking, see and be seen and simply enjoy the day.

Thanks to the concello and everyone involved. It’s great to see that these feir(i)as not only are well organised but mostimportantly appreciated by everyone and thus keep a community alive. 

Expat

PS Why not visit the Sober concello site for more information and not to forget the tourist information at the plaza (or praza) is open throughout August.

Again we have fallen for the trap that one sort of automatically assumes a fiesta is on a weekend. Like I’ve written before, time is a slightly different concept here. It is therefore very important to memorise the names of the days not the numerals.

So Sobers fiesta de Rosca is on Lunes (12 de Augusto). Although we tend to know what day (numeral) it is, it is not important except maybe for market days which are always on fixed dates e.g. 8th and 24th.

Most other events revolve around Saint days and local customs and are adjusted by the name of the day. So its lunes secundo semana Augusto, or tres semanas antes… etc.

It is also important to know the local fiestas as villages, even Monforte tend to be closed for some days whilst this fiesta is held.

It can be quite funny when instead to going to the local ferreteria for some materials one ends up in front of one of these huge orchestra vans. Instead of the cash register tingling one is blasted with Latin American rhythm. Nothing can be that urgent and there is always manana.

Today a beautiful Sunday we thought, oh, it must be fiesta de rosca in Sober. Oh no, it isn’t - its lunes (Tuesday)! 

Ah well, we had a nice coffee and mgdalena, drove around a bit, admired the scenery around us and are now awaiting our new guests. They are Spanish - so it’s going to be a severe test of our language abilities soon.

Until than we are going to enjoy a blissful warmish day.

Expat