1 October
We left our hotel in Luarca on Wednesday morning after a delicious breakfast at a
pastelería (bakery/cafe) that we had discovered on Monday; Jerome had a small sandwich and I had a toasted baguette, plus juice and coffee for both of us. We also picked up a loaf of
pan rústico (the Spanish name for crusty bread, in this case a baguette) and a couple of almond cookies for our evening meal in Galicia.
Before leaving Asturias, however, we drove about twelve miles up a
very windy, steep, mountainous road to the town of Boal, where we had read that there were some Indiano houses along the highway. It took us longer than we had expected to get there, and the houses weren't very interesting, so we turned around and headed back to Coaña, where a Celtic
castro, or fortified town, has been unearthed and an interpretation center established. This was an Iron-Age village (4th century b.c.) of round dwellings built of slate with thatched roofs. About 80 structures are clustered on a hill below a walled "acropolis", with streets, drainages, and even baths. The Romans conquered it in the 1st century but did not live there, so it was left pretty much intact. The site was discovered in 1877, so it is one of the earliest
castros to come to light. On the down side, modern archaeological techniques were not available then, and so its excavation and restoration were somewhat crude. Still, the site is protected, and at least half as yet unearthed, and if the economy ever turns around, they expect to do more research at the site. The two staff members on duty filled the role of our national park rangers, both very professional and clearly knowledgeable, and told us a lot about the development of the site in archaeological terms as well as historical and cultural.
In talking to the two park rangers, we also learned that Boal, the town up the road, is in fact a center for research not only on the Indianos but on immigration in general, through an institute there that collaborates with regional universities. An annual symposium is taking place there this weekend; we obviously should have researched the town more deeply before we blew it off. But by now it was after noon and we were eager to be on our way, so we filed both places away as resources for future visits to Asturias.
We headed west into Galicia, stopping for a meal at a corner cafe in Viveira, and arriving at our hotel here near Cariño, in the farthest northwestern corner of the Iberian peninsula. A Miranda ("The View", in Galician) is a modern hotel, family run, with only six rooms. It sits on a bluff looking over a huge estuary. It does indeed have a beautiful view. We got here to find the place closed with a "back in a moment" note on the door. So we took a drive, came back, and still no one here. We began to formulate a "plan b". Finally another guest arrived, let herself in with her key, and called the owner. So all was well. Whew. This is a remote area, largely undeveloped in terms of tourism, and we weren't sure what the options would have been. But we have had a lovely couple of days, about which more in another post.
