Xinzo de Limia

At six-thirty on a February morning the loudspeakers crackle into life and a brass band strikes up outside the pharmacy. By seven, men in lace petticoats and three-metre conical hats are clanking cowbells round the square. This is Xinzo de Limia, 625 m above sea level on the high plateau of Ourense, and the first day of Entroido—Spain’s longest carnival, five winter weeks of costumed chaos that turns a quiet market town into an open-air theatre.

For the rest of the year Xinzo keeps different hours. Farmers roll into the cafeterías at dawn for café con leche and churros, market stalls fold away by 2 p.m., and the wide main street—Calle Progreso—empties quickly once the sun drops behind the grain silos. The rhythm is unmistakably rural: tractors parked beside the soportales, wheat and potato fields lapping at the last houses, and a wind that sweeps unchecked across the vega of A Limia, once the bottom of a vast Ice-Age lake.

The lake that isn’t there

Ask anyone over fifty and they’ll point to the level horizon and say “la Antela”. The Lagoa de Antela was drained in the 1950s to create cropland, but its memory still shapes conversation. Bird-watchers with binoculars can pick out the remnants—seasonal pools where cranes and godwits pause on migration—yet there is no viewpoint, no visitor centre, just a grid of farm tracks that vanish into the mist. Walk one of them at dusk and the sense of absence is stronger than any ruined wall: a whole landscape holding its breath.

Back in town, the modest monuments make no attempt to compete. The parish church of Santa Mariña, rebuilt in the eighteenth century after a fire, has a retable gilded in the Galician baroque style and a side chapel whose Romanesque arch is the only clue to an older building on the same spot. Doors open for mass at 9 a.m. and 7 p.m.; between times you may find the sacristan willing to switch on the lights so you can study the faded blues and pinks that still cling to the carved cherubs.

Carnival capital

Entroido here is less parade, more participatory theatre. The main characters are the pantallas: men (and a growing number of women) wearing handcrafted masks of wire mesh, goose-feather headdresses and suits sewn from multicoloured ribbons. Their cowbells—cencerros—weigh up to 25 kg and can be heard half a kilometre away. Tradition dictates they chase onlookers, sprinkling ash or flour, but the rules are strict: never touch first, always retreat when asked, photograph only from the front so the mask’s expression is visible.

Key dates shift with Lent, so check the calendar yearly. Domingo de Corredoiro brings the first mass outing; Domingo Fareleiro (Flour Sunday) turns the square white; and Martes de Entroido ends with the entierro de la sardina, a mock funeral complete with weeping widows in black lace. Accommodation for the February weekends books out months ahead; the three small hotels on Calle Progreso charge carnival supplements but remain cheaper than a coastal parador. If you’re driving, leave the car on the ring road—police close the centre from 10 a.m. and tow without sentiment.

Food of the plateau

Galician cuisine is usually associated with the coast, yet the interior pantry holds its own. Cozido galego, a one-pot of pork belly, chorizo, chickpeas and cabbage, appears on every lunch menu during carnival when temperatures hover just above freezing. Octopus is trucked in daily from the Ría de Arousa and served in the market taverns: tenderised, simmered, dressed with olive oil and sweet pimentón de la Vera. For cautious palates, pimientos de Oímbra—grilled local peppers with no heat—make a reliable side dish, while A De Torino bar offers breaded chicken strips that have rescued many a British youngster.

Vegetarians need to plan ahead. Most kitchens will cobble together revuelto de setas (wild-mushroom scramble) or empanada de zorza without the spiced pork, but you must ask the night before; Galicians still regard meat-free as a novelty rather than a right. Pudding is usually tarta de castañas, a dense chestnut cake that pairs well with the town’s herbal queimada coffee, set alight tableside for theatrical effect.

Walking the vanished shore

Outside fiesta season Xinzo’s greatest asset is space. The plateau is criss-crossed by caminos de herradura, ancient bridleways that join hamlets whose stone granaries—hórreos—stand on stilts above the damp soil. A gentle circuit heads south-east from the cemetery to the village of Ramil, 4 km across wheat stubble and newly planted potatoes. You’ll pass more cows than people, and the only soundtrack is the wind rattling electricity wires. In April the fields turn lime-green; by late June the colour has deepened to gold and the air smells of cut straw and wild fennel.

Summer nights stay cool thanks to the altitude, so bring a fleece even in July. Winter, conversely, can trap fog for days: driving becomes a crawl between ghostly poplars, and the thermometer may not climb above 4 °C. Snow is rare but not unknown; if it settles, the road to Ourense is gritted promptly, yet buses stop running until the melt.

How to get here, and when not to bother

There are no direct UK flights into Ourense. Most visitors fly to Santiago de Compostela or Porto, collect a hire car and reach Xinzo in two hours via the A-52 autopista. ALSA runs one morning and one afternoon service from Santiago bus station, but Sunday departures are cancelled—plan accordingly. Trains from Madrid terminate at Ourense city; a local monbus covers the final 35 km, though evening services arrive too late for dinner.

Spring and early autumn give the clearest light for photography and the best walking weather. August fiestas honour Santa Mariña with open-air dances that finish by midnight—lively enough, yet tame after the winter carnival. If you crave dramatic architecture or boutique shopping, continue west to Allariz or south to the ribeiro wine terraces; Xinzo offers instead the minor pleasures of a working town: market gossip, bakery smell, the way afternoon sun catches on ochre plaster.

Come for Entroido and you’ll remember the bells long after the flour has washed off. Come in May and you may have the plains to yourself, save for a tractor driver raising two fingers from the steering wheel in silent greeting. Either way, leave expectations of picture-postcard Galicia at home: this is the province of open horizons, stubborn memory and a carnival that refuses to end on schedule.