Galicia!

Saludos de Soria!
Hi everyone! This weekend I had the opportunity to go to Galicia with a friend who lives there but works here in Soria, he was headed home and I have always wanted to get to Galicia so I tagged along!
Galicia is an autonomous community in the most northwest corner of Spain, like Asturias it is very green and distinct from the rest of Spain. It’s known as the heart of green Spain and like it’s neighbor Asturias it also has a Celtic history. The language there is Gallego another Latin based language, which was difficult for me to understand, I could follow words and get the message more or less but some of it is just so different from Spanish that I had no idea what was going on.
We left for Galicia on Thursday; it is about a six-hour drive from Soria, for Incio, a small village where Miguel lives. We stayed in Incio on Friday and we drove around to see the views, the village is up in the mountains. For lunch we went to this tiny restaurant in the mountains that is a covered outdoor restaurant where everything is hand made of wood. The owner, who was also our server at times, made everything from the flooring to the bridge over the river next to our table to the locks in the bathrooms of wood. It was gorgeous! I took some photos, but they don’t do the place justice. The restaurants specialty is beef from Galicia, which is supposed to be the best in Spain; we sat right next to the wood fire oven where they cook all the beef. They brought out a cheese plate, a salad and then plates of different cuts of beef with a homemade sauce. Everything was great! For dessert I had Chestnut cake that was great and Miguel had a fresh cheese and honey from the region, which was wonderful!
The views were absolutely breathtaking! Everything is so green and the heather was in bloom so the mountains were dotted with purple (which is why the honey is so good).
Dinner was just as good there were about 15 of us and we cooked out, everyone brought something. We had anchovies, fresh and grilled, which for me was a big deal to eat and no one there had any idea how picky I am about food! They were fresh anchovies about 6 inches long and hadn’t been cleaned or anything, head, eyes, bones and everything! I was proud of myself and I actually really liked them, I ate a few, next was grilled cuddle fish and there was homemade bread and salad.
Next we headed off to Ons Island for the day, this beautiful Island off the coast that’s protected as a wildlife reserve. We hiked all day (took tons of pics) and then spent some time on the beach and went swimming a bit before heading back to the mainland.
Next we went to a small village called Laxe, where some friends had rented a house by the beach for the month and we stayed there for 2 days relaxing and sight seeing again with some friends and their dog. We cooked a lot in the house but would frequently go out for tapas and beer or wine. The tapas that I liked the most from Galicia were the Pulpo (octopus) and these peppers that are quickly fried and lightly salted. The wine was great, a lot of whites and also a friend of Miguel’s has a vineyard and makes his own wine and cider, both were good, but the wine was a great red!!
It was so great to get to go to Galicia and I am in love with the northern coast of Spain! I also made it through the entire weekend with out English (everyone there also speaks Spanish as well as Gallego). Check out my pics if you have a min. to see where I was! Hope all is well back home! I miss you all and wish you were here!

Check out this site for some info on Galicia and pics!
http://www.galiciaguide.com/