Spanish views from a small town

Yesterday, we went on one of our wanderings, the three of us. We made another trip out to the mountainous area of the province of Lugo known as O Courel. We've been to many places all around Galicia, but there are two or three that always call us back, and this is one of them. Here, the mountains rear out of the earth, sometimes showing us the folds where they have buckled and twisted since they pushed out of the sea millions of years ago. Villages are lost among the folds.  It took us about three hours, without pressing down on the accelerator, to get to the jumping off spot in Quiroga, an unimaginative town that grew up around the road it is situated on merely as a commuting node, where people and merchandise gathered together. Still, the area is famous for its olive groves. Before the Reconquest, the people in the area grew both the imported grape vines to make wine, and the imported olive trees to make oil. But, when the Catholic Monarchs, Isabella and Ferdinand, set out to fin...

In eastern Galicia, where this region meets León, there are mountains that reach 1500 meters, with soaring summits, and plummeting valleys with wild brooks that meander down ravines. There are no commercial pines or eucalyptus planted on their slopes, and the local flora flourishes. Chestnuts, oaks, walnuts, maples, birches, hazles, heather, all kinds of Mediterranean and Atlantic flora, depending on altitude. It's a beautiful, yet rough land, through which there are lanes that in winter snows become impassible, obliging the dwindling residents to be resilient and prepared for isolation.  The Romans reached this area, and, of course, exploited it. They took iron, gold, and antimony back to the Empire. There are still abandoned mines to be found, including tunnels near the village of Romeor. To get to them, you need to cross the village, and walk just over a kilometer up the mountain. We got to the stepping off point, but it was beginning to rain, we weren't in possession of a...