A Pontenova

The chestnut leaves are the colour of burnt sugar when they land on the roof of the old railway tunnel, and for a moment the only sound is the river fifty feet below pulling last night’s rain towards the Bay of Biscay. This is A Pontenova on an October morning: no gift-shop windows, no selfie-stick vendors, just the smell of wet slate and the certainty that the day will follow the mood of the water.

A Town that Grew with the Trains and the Trout

Copper and manganese turned up here in the 1880s, and the narrow-gauge line that once hauled ore to the coast still cuts through the hillside. The mines are fenced off now, but the rail-bed has been flattened into a 32-kilometre greenway that begins behind the football pitch and heads upstream past stone sleepers and echo-lit tunnels. Walk east for an hour and you reach Taramundi; west brings you back to the village in time for lunch. Either way, the gradient is gentle enough for trainers, though a pocket torch saves a bruised shin in the longer tunnels where mobile signal dies without ceremony.

The same water that carried miners’ spoil feeds one of the better brown-trout fisheries in northern Spain. British anglers who haunt the Fly Forums rate the Eo’s upper pools, but they also warn that regional permits cost €45 a season and the guardia civil do check. If you don’t know your blood knot from your bootlace, it’s simpler to order the fish already pan-fried at Bar O Eo on Rúa do Medio—trout arrives whole, stuffed with Serrano ham, and the waiter will fillet it tableside if you ask politely.

Chestnut Woods, Cow Bells and a Bridge that Isn’t for Postcards

Leave the main road, cross the modern concrete bridge, and the valley tightens into a string of small parishes whose names—A Pobladura, Ove, As Rozas—appear and disappear like mile markers on the OS map. Chestnut plantations, called soutos, climb the north-facing slope; the trees are pollarded low so the nuts fall within reach and the branches grow back twisted, almost bonsai. After the first frost locals fan out with wicker baskets and wellingtons: the going rate for castañas at Saturday’s market is €3 a kilo, less if you haggle in Galician. Picking is permitted on public land, but every wood has an owner and a dog. Close the gate, keep to the path, and nobody minds an extra pair of boots scrunching through the mast.

Back in the village centre the parish church of San Salvador squats behind a row of plane trees. It’s 19th-century neo-Romanesque, plastered rather than granite-hewn, and the interior smells of beeswax and damp hymn books. The door is usually unlocked until one o’clock; inside, the only genuine curiosity is a wooden statue of Christ whose knees have been worn smooth by pilgrims on the lesser-known Camino del Norte interior. Photography is allowed, flash isn’t, and the caretaker will appear from the sacristy if you drop coins in the box—otherwise the silence is complete.

The bridge that gives the town its name is a 1950s rebuild, wide enough for one lorry and a pavement. Stand in the middle at dusk and you see why the place exists: the Eo bends east-west here, creating a natural ford and a gravel beach where kids still swim in July when the water drops. Upstream the current slides over slate shelves; downstream an old mill wheel lies half-submerged, turning only when the river is in spate. It is not pretty in the chocolate-box sense, but it is alive, and the view changes every hour with the light and the water level.

When to Come, Where to Sleep, How Not to Get Stranded

Spring brings wild garlic along the rail-trail and daytime temperatures of 18 °C—perfect walking weather before the mosquitoes wake up. Autumn is chestnut season, russet and gold, though Atlantic fronts can arrive in twenty minutes; a £5 packable mac lives permanently in day-sacks here. Winter is quiet, occasionally snowy above 400 m, and several rural cottages close from November to March. Summer is warm rather than hot (26 °C average), but August is also when half of Lugo province descends for the trout fiesta on the first weekend, doubling the population and emptying the lone cash machine. If you want solitude, avoid that Friday-to-Sunday; if you want cider on the street and a free fillet demo, book early—there are only two small hotels and a handful of self-catering houses.

Accommodation is inexpensive by UK standards: double rooms at Hotel Coto Real start at €55 including breakfast (strong coffee, sponge cake, ham you can smell before you see). The alternative is to rent one of the rebuilt stone barns on the outskirts; expect under-floor heating, Wi-Fi that flickers when it rains, and a welcome basket with homemade orujo that tastes of aniseed and regret. Either way, you will need a car. There is no railway station, the daily bus from Lugo continues to Ribadeo at school-run hours, and a pre-booked taxi from Asturias airport will set you back €120. Hire prices at A Coruña are lower, and the drive—A-8 to Vegadeo, then inland on the AS-28—takes ninety minutes if you resist stopping for photographs of the estuary.

Eating Without the Sea, Drinking Without the Hype

A Pontenova is 35 km from the coast, so menus revolve around what the land and river produce. Trout apart, the default order is cocido gallego, a one-pot stew of beef, pork belly, chickpeas and greens that arrives in a shallow ceramic bowl with a wooden ladle. It is not spicy, it is simply filling, and most restaurants will swap the morcilla for extra chorizo if offal isn’t your thing. Vegetarians survive on tortilla and the seasonal side dish of grelos (turnip tops sautéed with garlic); vegans should probably self-cater.

Dessert is usually chestnut tart or filloas, the Galician answer to crêpes, served with honey or a splash of the same cream liqueur the waiter will try to sell you by the shot glass. Wine lists are short and local: look for Ribeira Sacra reds made from Mencía grapes, light enough to drink at lunch and still walk the valley afterwards. If in doubt, Estrella Galicia on tap is everywhere and tastes of malt rather than marketing.

Leave the Sat-Nav, Take the OS Approach

Google will insist the rail-trail loop is 9.4 km and takes two hours; it forgets to mention the collapsed viaduct detour that adds another forty minutes and a thigh-burning set of steps. Paper maps are sold at the tobacconist-cum-farm-shop on Rúa do Progreso (€6, Spanish only), but the proprietor will trace the route in biro if you buy a bag of chestnuts at the same time. Mobile coverage disappears in every tunnel, so screenshot the directions before you set off, and carry a head-torch even at midday.

The same advice applies to forest tracks west of the village: what looks like a gentle contour on the screen turns into a 15% gradient on loose shale. Park at the recreational area above the river, lock the car, walk the last kilometre; cows have right of way and they know it.

Low-Key Endings Suit Low-Key Places

By late afternoon the river has picked up the metallic sheen of the sky and the church bells count out the hour, though few people appear. Teenagers drift towards the sports pavilion, bars stack chairs on the terrace, and the smell of wood smoke drifts down from the hillsides where villagers still heat their houses with chestnut logs. There is no closing-credits sunset, no souvenir to speak of, just the realisation that the day has been measured by water levels and wood smoke rather than museum opening times. That, for many, is the reason the car will turn off the main road again next year—provided the river behaves and the cash machine has been refilled.