Finally got around to Giles Tremlett’s “Ghosts of Spain” yesterday and was glad to find it more substantive and analytical than I’d expected. Reading on a couch here in the rural peninsula of San Vincente do Grove, in Galicia I was particularly intrigued to note that while Galicia has, like the Basques and the Catalan’s its own independence movement, that both Francisco Franco and Fidel Castro both hail from the place ancestrally: (Ferrol & Lancara, respectively). Tough soil, it would seem. I’d been plodding around in medieval and baroque Spanish history before coming and once here, have made my way through some lighter fare. I had to take some time to re-research just why it was Franco wasn’t all in with the Axis in WWII and how it was he wasn’t toppled at the end.
As my kids say, other people go on “vacations” and generally lounge around somewhere, by a pool for their holiday. We “travel” and often travel hard. These few days here near O Grove were intended to be more vacation-like. The first day was pool and ping pong. When my daughters finally awoke yesterday morning we began talking about a walk to the beach. A small, peninsula, there is water all around us. Before we left, I wanted to call and double check that my reservation up the road at Culler de Pau wasn’t a mirage. I’d called a half a dozen restaurants yesterday and when they said “nothing tonight” I asked, how about tomorrow and the booked me. It was only later that I realized that this is the Culler de Pau which is Michelin starred and had appeared booked out for the next month when I had tried to book a place from back home.
I called to check and they reconfirmed but the phone cut off before I could answer their questions about the menu. We headed there first on our walk and I was able to preorder the tasting menu for three and one for a vegetarian. We debated which “beach” to go to after that. Overcast, a bit on the cold side for August no one wanted to get wet, just connect with lands end. We headed down to the “Praia Area das Pipas” beach and had a walk along the rocks. And while I never would have done this in the past the most marvelous thing about this walk for me was identifying new plants. I must have noticed thirty new plants and identified them all on this walk alone.
My Seek app tells me they were: Fennel, Bristly Oxtongue, Japanese Camellia, Jimsonweed, Chinese Gooseberry, Apple Ming, Common Passionfruit, Jointed Charlock, Tomato, Wild Leek, Common Lamb’s-quarters, Common Bracken, Greater Bird’s-foot-trefoil, Common Lantana, Angel’s Trumpet, Wand Mullein, Common Vervain, Oregon Oak, Sea Holly, Dead Man’s Fingers, Common Golden Thistle, Sand Stock, Common Andryala, Purple Viper’s-bugloss, Gorse, Pampas Grass, Pink Knotweed, Red Valerian, Sea Kale, American Pumpkin, Slender Wild Oat, Sweet Chestnut, Cape Honeysuckle, Common Lavender, Miniature Umbrella Tree, Purple Shamrock and Purple Allamanda. Not that you were asking.
A late lunch at Gastrobar Pensión Casa O Chasco, which we’d stumbled on, returning home. My call with a client was cancelled as the poor gent notified me that he’d come down with Covid. I repositioned my mask and came home more time with Giles Tremlett and then a long siesta, more reading before realizing that it was coming up on 9:00PM much sooner than I’d expected. Walk? No, my younger daughter insisted her legs were still chafed after that last walk. And she was correct in remembering that Culler de Pau had a parking lot in the back where I was surprised to find a northern red oak, just like back home.
Ah, they took good care of us there, last night. My older daughter had been close to tears the night before when, yet another restaurant suggested they could accommodate her vegetarianism with a ‘grandma salad.’ We had the tasting menu with plenty of wonderful local seafood and for early each dish she had an alternative. They started my wife and I on a sherry from down near Cordoba but every other grape was from nearby or indeed from northern Portugal which is nearby. A small fortune, certainly when all was done but every single member of our quartet seemed happy and, after spending nearly three hours there we left in a buoyant mood, one and all.
Thursday, 8/26/21
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