Vilar de Barrio

The road into Vilar de Barrio climbs to 650 m before it surrenders to a scatter of stone houses, each one angled as if to claim its own slice of mountain light. Granite walls glow pale ochre at dawn; by midday they’ve turned the colour of weathered bone. This is not a village that gathers neatly round a plaza. It strings itself along 6 km of the N-525, and the only way to understand it is to keep stopping the car, or simply to walk.

The Lay of the Land

Altitude does funny things to the weather. One ridge can be basking in sunshine while the next is smothered by a cloud that feels cold enough to snow, even in May. Night-time temperatures drop 8-10 °C below the valley floor at Ourense, 45 minutes away, so come prepared for four seasons in a single afternoon. The reward is air so clear that the bell-tower of Maceda’s church is visible 12 km off on a good day.

Hiking here is more a matter of joining the dots between hamlets than following signed trails. The council has recently way-marked a 9-km loop that leaves from the traffic circle, dips into oak and sweet-chestnut, then climbs back through wheat-coloured broom. It’s gentle, but the cumulative ascent is 300 m; after rain the clay sticks to boots like wet cement. In winter the same track can ice over in the shade well into the morning, and the wind that whips across the plateau tastes of the Atlantic, 100 km distant but still dictating terms.

What Passes for a Centre

Pilgrims on the Camino Sanabrés march in expecting a “sizable town” and stop dead at the small garden roundabout with its stone cross and three park benches. This is it. The albergue, a low concrete block tucked behind the medical centre, is prized for one thing: under-floor heating. Twenty beds, €8 a night, but bring your own saucepan if you plan to cook; the kitchen is bare except for a two-ring hob. When beds are full, walkers trail 150 m back down the road to A Casa do Adelino (doubles €55, phone ahead).

Bars are thin on the ground. Bistró Don Manuel opens early, posts a hand-written menú del día at €12 and will fill Thermoses with coffee for the onward march to Xunqueira. House wine is young Ribeiro, served cold in tumblers – sharp enough to cut the dust of the camino and unlikely to offend anyone used to a pub white. There is no cash machine; the last one was ripped out during the banking cull of 2020. Stock up in A Laza, 18 km back, or hope your contactless card works at the filling station.

The Architecture of Work

Forget mansions and arcaded squares. Pride here is measured in the height of a hórreo – the raised granaries that keep grain clear of rats and damp. Several still stand on the approach road, their stone stilts narrower than those on the coast, capped with flat slabs of local slate. Roofs of new-build bungalows mimic the same steep pitch, but in corrugated colourbond that rattles when the hail arrives.

Walk into any of the nine parish hamlets and you’ll find a Romanesque church the size of an English chapel, a brass-band banner fading inside, and a font that predates the Reformation by three centuries. Doors are generally open; if not, the key hangs at the nearest house, identifiable by the lace curtain in the window. The delight is in the detail: a medieval carving of a harvest mouse above the capital, or a 1920s fresco of Saint James wearing wellingtons because the artist only had local models.

Calendar of Surprises

August’s potato festival turns the main road into a one-day car park. Half of Ourense province drives up to eat roast patacas brushed with pimentón and to drink cider that costs €1.50 a plastic cup. The village population triples, the albergue is booked by 2 p.m., and the only bakery sells out of empanada by ten. If you crave silence, come the following weekend instead; the litter bins will still be overflowing but the quiet will have returned.

October brings the chestnut harvest. Farmers heap green husks at the roadside; the smell of smoke from roasting racks drifts across the valley like toffee turned savoury. A small agricultural fair sets up in the polideportivo – no tat, just weighing scales, tractor parts and a stall selling artisan knives with handles carved from antler. Entrance is free; coffee comes in a jam-jar and tastes better than it should.

The Honest Season

Winter is when you discover whether you really like the place. Days are five hours shorter, the granite absorbs every degree of heat, and the wind searches out gaps in British-made anoraks with vindictive precision. Yet the clarity is astonishing. Frost feathers every bramble; buzzards sit motionless on telephone poles, too cold to flap. You can walk the camino variant to Laza and meet no-one but a farmer on a quad bike moving hay. Bars serve caldo gallego – a broth thick with greens and chorizo – that costs €2.50 and doubles as hand-warmer.

Spring, by contrast, is all volume. Meadows are loud with skylarks; ditches foam with cow parsley. The council grades the rural tracks, so April is prime cycling time before the clay ruts harden into concrete ridges. By June the first pilgrims are grumbling about heatstroke, forgetting that the altitude still hits 28 °C at midday and shade is scarce until the oak woods begin 4 km west of the village.

Leaving Without a Checklist

Guidebooks mutter that Vilar de Barrio has “no major monument”, then hurry on to the next dot on the camino. They miss the point. The village is a lesson in how northern Spain survives: one smallholding, one church, one hórreo at a time. Spend two hours wandering between Vilariño and A Igrexa parishes and you’ll have seen it; spend a day looping through chestnut woods and you’ll understand why people stay. Just remember to fill the petrol tank and the wallet before you arrive, bring boots that relish mud, and abandon the idea that somewhere has to be “pretty” to be worth the detour.