Summer and the living is easy. Traipsing barefoot through our wine laden gardens in the formerkingdom of Galicia, here is a quick glimpse back in time.
Wikipedia shows a very concise article about Galicia specifically its time as a kingdom.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Galicia
So the kingdom existed on and off from 410 – 1833. The first where Germanic speaking Suebi.
These are estimated to have been fewer than 30.000 and settled mainly in what is now Braga in Portugal, Porto and what is now Galicia in Lugo.
Later they where defeated and absorbed by the Visigoths.
The heraldic sign says it all – three beakers (vine?) Probably fuelled by this, the usual historic squabbles, marriages, invasions, etc. etc. happened but the kingdom of Galicia existed (on paper) until 1833.
In 1846 an armed uprising helped to regain Galicias territorial unity but it never again became a kingdom.
Its also interesting to read the details about the Xunta (Wikipedia Xunta de Galicia)
In short the Xunta de Galicia had its origin as the Xunta of the Kingdom of Galicia 1528 – 1833. It acted as representation of Galicia to the central Spanish monarchy. It held no real power as it was consultative only.
This changed during devolution and the Spanish Constitution of 1978 allowed for the establishment of the present Xunta (16/03/1978). In 1981 the Galician Statute of Autonomy passed thus ratifying the Xunta and Galicians self government and laying the foundations for the Xutas vast bureaucracy. On the other hand to keep track, interpret and use the EC’s ever more complicated rulings and development plans (subventions to you and me) require a lot of inquisitive and interpretive minds. If you ever tried to get subventions for anything you will know what I’m hinting at.
Now we are running up to August, when Spain shuts down and all the Galicians come home. Yes, the population will shorty double or treble and for four weeks parking is a bit of a gable.
So relishing walking barefoot through part of this former kingdom I look up into the vines and see pleasure (grapes) and work (diseases / airing), but as I said “summer is easy”.
Expat
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