Arbo

The river arrives before the village does. From the A3 motorway you drop down a lane of moss-green oaks and suddenly the Miño is simply there – broad, slow, with Portugal on the far bank close enough to read the road signs. Arbo sits on the Spanish side, a scatter of stone houses, small vineyards and one working quay where nets dry in the wind. No dramatic reveal, no postcard plaza: just water, vines and the smell of river mud mixed with wood smoke.

A border that tastes of wine and eels

The local saying is “Arbo é lamprea e viño” – Arbo is lamprey and wine. The fish in question looks like a prehistoric hosepipe with teeth; it spends its adult life clamped to rocks in the Atlantic, then wriggles up the Miño between January and April to spawn. Restaurants haul them live from tanks, kill them in red wine, and simmer the lot with rice until the sauce turns the colour of claret. Brits who expect kedgeree get something closer to game stew: iron-rich, faintly metallic, impossible to forget whatever your verdict. Seasonal menus announce arroz de lamprea at €18-24 a portion; outside those four months the dish disappears completely and the village calendar deflates.

Wine fills the gap. Terraces of Albariño and Treixadura climb every south-facing slope; stone walls built during the 1800s still hold the thin soil in place. Cellars are small – annual output of a single Arbo adega is often what a Rioja giant spills in a week – so tastings feel more like being shown someone’s garage project. Bodegas such as As Laxas or Terras de Arbo welcome visitors but only by appointment (phone numbers are scribbled on the door). The standard pour is a 2022 Albariño, lemon-scented, no oak, tasting faintly of the river’s cool breeze; bottles leave at €9-12, a third of UK retail.

Walking the line between countries

A riverside path starts beside the old wheat mill and runs three kilometres downstream to the nearest river-beach, A Pasada. The route is flat, wide enough for two, and shaded by alders that drop yellow leaves in October. Mid-summer water temperature reaches 23 °C – bath-warm for Galicia – and the current is lazy enough for a seven-year-old to stand waist-deep without drama. Bring change for the honesty-box car park (€1.50) and mosquito repellent after June; the little blighters rise at dusk in clouds worthy of Scotland.

Upstream the track narrows to a single dirt line used by vineyard tractors. Locals call it the camiño dos afligidos – path of the afflicted – because 19th-century day labourers walked it to reach Sunday mass. Today it makes a pleasant 5 km circuit past corn cribs on stone stilts (hórreos) and granite crosses carved with skull-and-bones. You will meet no one bar the occasional dog walker; mobile signal flickers in and out, so download the route offline before setting off.

Saturday lunch, Galician time

The church clock strikes two and the square is still empty. Kitchens fire up around 14:30; tables fill nearer 15:00. O Muíño hangs lamps of polished copper above a hearth where octopus tentacles curl on a pegged-down board. Order pulpo a la gallega (€12) and a cunca of Albariño drawn from the barrel; the wine arrives in a white ceramic bowl the size of a cereal portion, price scribbled in chalk on the bar. Service is unhurried – waiters gossip with regulars, the cook slips out for a cigarette – so settle in. If lamprey is running, neighbouring tables will be dissecting spine from flesh with the seriousness of surgeons; watch once, then try. The rice soaks up river, wine and centuries of practice.

Vegetarians can fall back on caldo gallego broth and torta de Santiago almond tart, but choices are limited; this is pork-and-seafood country. Prices feel stuck in 2015: a three-course lunch with wine rarely tops €20. Cards are accepted in most restaurants, yet the adjacent car park, the bakery and the Saturday market stall all want cash – keep a €20 note folded for emergencies.

Getting there and away

Porto airport is the simplest gateway: hire a car, join the A3 north, cross the bridge at Tui and peel off at the Arbo exit – 55 minutes, no tolls. Vigo airport is closer (40 min) but direct UK flights operate only from May to October. Two slow trains trundle daily from Vigo-Urzaiz station; the journey follows the estuary then turns inland through eucalyptus forests, tickets €6 each way. Without wheels you can reach the village, but vineyards and river beaches lie beyond walking distance – budget for a taxi or book a winery that collects.

Accommodation is thin. There is one small hotel above the pharmacy, four rooms, €65 B&B, and a handful of village houses on Airbnb. During the Fiesta de la Lamprea (25-26 April) every bed within 20 km is block-booked by Spanish food writers; either reserve six months ahead or avoid completely. Outside festival weekends you can arrive on spec and still get a room key tied to a wooden spoon handed through the bar.

When the river decides the weather

Altitude is only 60 m but the Miño acts like a micro-climate thermostat. Morning fog rolls downstream in February so thick you can’t see Portugal; by 11 a.m. it burns off to shirtsleeve sunshine. Even in August evenings drop to 15 °C – pack a fleece for post-prandial strolls. Rain is possible any month: if the surface turns pewter, swap walking for the wine museum in neighbouring Salvatierra de Miño, ten minutes by car, where €5 buys a self-pour card and an hour of comparative tasting.

Snow is almost unknown, yet winter floods are not. After heavy Atlantic storms the river can rise two metres, submerging the lower riverside path and closing the beach. Locals track levels on the Confederación Hidrográfica website; check before you set out between November and March.

Part of a bigger puzzle

Arbo works best as one tile in a border mosaic. Spend the morning here, drive twenty minutes south to the fortress town of Melgaço for Portuguese vinho verde, or head north to the Celtic ruins at Santa Trega above the Miño gorge. The village itself fills half a day: walk the river, taste the wine, eat the fish that looks like it shouldn’t be food. Stay longer only if quiet evenings watching Portuguese lights twinkle across the water sound like holiday perfection rather than the absence of life.

Come with curiosity, not a checklist. Arbo offers no single show-stopper, yet the combination of river, wine and cross-border culture is specific to this bend in the Miño. You will leave with the scent of bay leaves and red wine in your coat, perhaps a bottle rolling in the boot, and the knowledge that Europe still has corners where lunch happens when people are ready, not when the guidebook says.