Life & travel scribbles

I haven't been here for a while, one can probably guess...I was quite busy doing all sorts of things ;) But how engaging, adventurous and exciting!  Starting from the beginning, we've settled quite well by now in our village in southern Galicia. We are on the brink of this particular region, very much adjacent to northern Portugal. Couto Mixto is just next to where we live and that's the area where not that long ago people could choose which nationality they wanted to have, at the time of getting married. Anyway, just to get you guys through, I will better go for the pictures instead of writing too much. The garden area is what, apart from the house, was engaging us a lot and mostly these months, since we got here. We were planning ahead and designing the whole garden space, planting using different techniques like i.e. companion planting and bio-intensive gardening (not foot square though ;)), raised beds, hugelkultur (a bit flattened) and key-hole beds. We also ...

Finally, here came the day, mwaaahaha, after all the movements associated with life in SW England and short-term stopover in Poland we landed up in Spain. On the 4th day of April and after a not-too-bad, nearly 3-days journey across Europe we got to Ourense, Galicia, where a new chapter of our lives was to come. One may ask, why there? I lived in Ourense city for ¾ of the year 2014 participating in the project subsidized by EU, working for the local group of Friends of the Earth (here: Amigos da Terra). It was the year we set off to India too. For me, Galicia, as the second place in Spain I lived in for a while, appeared to be something I didn’t know about Spain. Green, lush and very Nordic-like region, full of mystery and rich in remnants of the Celtic culture charmed me entirely. The land of rivers, valleys and canyons, roman castros , beautiful estuaries and around 1600 km of coasts. There is a commonly known phenomenon called “morriña” which means not more not less than a longi...

Further on we went. From the seashore we headed inland where a few nice spots awaited us. Every day was brining some new curiosities. From the shore, Gaztelugatxe, we went along the coast down to Bakio to have a coffee and to take a shower on the beach ;) Very refreshing one indeed, as it wasn't too sunny.  Later the same morning we headed towards Burgos, going round Bilbao, to the Nervión waterfall ( es )- the biggest waterfall on the Iberian Peninsula, with a single drop of 222 m ! Very impressive it was, indeed, although at that time of dry season there was no water at all, to our surprise ;)  Nevertheless the river's canyon itself was just breath-taking and was making you think about the earth's magnitude and grand self-creation forces.  On the way... leaving the coast for good right before the Nervión there were herds of horses all around <3 After dismounting the motorbike and a short visit in the visitors centre we took a long, a few kilom...