Becerreá

The morning bus from Lugo drops you beside a stone church and a bar whose door is still half-closed. No-one offers a map. Instead, the driver points to the valley floor where the Navia river is only a whisper between grassy banks and says, simply, “Ahí empieza”—it starts here. That is Becerreá’s pitch: not a show-stopper, but the place that ushers the mountains in.

At 650 m above sea level the air is thinner than on the Galician coast, cool enough to make a fleece welcome even in June. The village (population 2,700) sits in a natural corridor between the eastern sierras of Lugo and the first proper folds of the Ancares range. Roads converge, then scatter again, which explains the constant sound of timber lorries down-shifting on the A-6 and the faint smell of diesel that drifts across the football pitch. Accept the traffic; it pays the bills. Once you leave the N-VI behind, lanes climb into parishes whose names—Lamas, A Pobra, O Santo—rarely appear on English-language websites. That is where the day’s real business begins.

Slate, Hay and the Smell of Woodsmoke

Forget picture-postcard white villages. Becerreá’s palette is grey, green and rust. Slate roofs overlap like fish scales, walls are granite softened by lichen, and every second driveway holds a stack of last winter’s beech ready for the axe. The traditional hórreos—raised granaries—are shorter and squatter than those on the coast, built for snow load rather than Atlantic damp. Some still have their original thatch, replaced every decade by neighbours who expect payment in cider, not cash. You will not find guides dressed in regional costume; you will find a farmer in overalls who waves you through his yard because the public footpath has run through it since 1898.

Walking is what stitches the place together. A mellow option is the 5-km loop that follows the Navia downstream to the medieval bridge of Ponte Navia and returns through hay meadows where roe deer watch from the hedge. Total ascent: 90 m. Time: an hour and a half, plus pauses to read the engraved stone that commemorates a 19th-century flood. If that feels too gentle, drive eight kilometres up the LU-631 to the hamlet of O Cebreiro, then strike south on the old smugglers’ path to Alto de San Roque. The summit hits 1,270 m; views stretch south-east towards El Bierzo and the first hints of Castilian brown. The climb is 400 m of calf-numbing gradient, and the wind can flip from balmy to bitter in twenty minutes. Bring a proper jacket and a map—way-marking is sporadic, and mobile coverage vanishes after the second cattle grid.

Food that Forgives the Weather

Back in the village centre, lunchtime options are limited to three bars and one restaurant that still calls itself a “café-comedor”. Expect no English menus; download the Galician pack beforehand. The house menu del día hovers round €12 and usually runs to lacón con grelos—ham hock simmered with turnip tops, earthy and salty enough to make a Brit think of winter greens in Yorkshire. Octopus arrives on a wooden plate dusted with pimentón; chewier than the Cornish catch, but the half-ration is manageable for newcomers. Vegetarians survive on caldo gallego broth and the reliable tortilla, though you may have to persuade the cook to leave out the chorizo. Pudding is tarta de Santiago, almond cake moistened with a splash of orujo if the landlord is feeling generous. Beer drinkers should try the local Sarria IPA, hoppy enough to pass muster in a Bristol pub and only €3 a bottle.

Shopping for supper is trickier. The last proper supermarket shuts at 14:00 and all day Sunday; the nearest late-opening Alimerka is 15 minutes away in Escairón. Becerreá has no cash machine—fill your wallet at the BP on the N-VI outside Triacastela before you turn off. Self-caterers should pack tea bags and anything more exotic than oregano; village shops stock bread, tinned tuna and the sort of cured beef that keeps indefinitely in a rucksack. On the upside, a kilo of season’s chestnuts sells for €2 from the back of a van beside the church from October to December. Roast them on the wood-burner of your €45-a-night Airbnb and the smell alone justifies the trip.

When the Clouds Drop

Weather is the unadvertised attraction. Atlantic fronts slide inland, hit the Ancares wall and stall, so sunshine and mist can alternate every half hour. Spring brings orchids along the riverbank; autumn fires the oak slopes copper; both are preferable to August when the village doubles in size with domestic tourists and every walker seems to be re-enacting the Camino Primitivo. Winter is quiet, sometimes too quiet: snow can block the LU-631 for a day, and the fog that locals call “borrasca” can pin you indoors until lunchtime. If you plan December forays, carry snow socks and enough diesel to run the heater while you wait for the plough.

A Base, not a Box Office

Becerreá will never elbow Santiago or the Rías Baixas off a first-timer’s itinerary, and locals seem happy with the arrangement. What it offers is affordable beds, honest food and immediate access to one of Spain’s least known mountain borders. Use it as a staging post—one night before tackling the high Ancares, two if you fancy a circular hike and an afternoon in the bread museum at San Cristovo do Real 12 km away. Leave the souvenir expectations at home; buy a wedge of local honey and a packet of chorizo criollo instead, then drive east until the phone loses signal and the road narrows to a lane where cows have right of way. That is where Becerreá’s modest claim holds good: the mountains start here, and the valley lets you walk in before the big ascents begin.