Meira

The tractor reverses out of a stone gateway at nine-thirty sharp, diesel fumes mixing with woodsmoke from last night's fire. Nobody looks up. In Meira, population 1,500, this counts as the morning rush hour.

Lugo's interior doesn't trade in coastal glamour. Forty minutes' drive from the provincial capital, the village sits on a shallow plateau where the Atlantic's last sighs turn to drizzle and the mountains of the eastern Sierras still feel theoretical. The land rolls, but politely; the highest point in the municipality barely tops 700 m. What you notice instead is the quiet accumulation of green—meadows that stay vivid even under February fog, oak and chestnut thickets crowding the roadside, stone walls the colour of old pewter.

A centre that still works

Meira's main plaza is really a widening in the road. The parish church anchors one side, 19th-century neoclassical with a clock that keeps indifferent time. Around it are the practical siblings of any small Spanish town: a bank with 1970s brown glass, two bar-cafés, a farm-supply shop that also sells toys at Christmas. The difference is the rhythm. People arrive on foot, clutching plastic bags or folders of tractor paperwork. Conversations last the length of a coffee, no longer. When the school bell rings at two, the street empties as suddenly as a theatre after the curtain.

Architecture is mixed vernacular rather than chocolate-box. Granite houses shoulder up to render-faced 1980s blocks; timber balconies sag beside neat PVC windows. Look down, however, and the stone speaks. Many doorways still carry the original owner's mark—initials, a date, sometimes a tiny relief of oxen or wheat sheaves. One lintel near the post office reads "1904, año de la peste"; local memory says it refers to a livestock epidemic that almost cleared the valley.

Carry on past the last houses and the tarmac gives way to a gravel lane between vegetable plots. Within five minutes you are among hórreos—rectangular grain stores on mushroom-shaped stilts—some still in daily use, others converted to garden sheds. The village boundary is theoretical; the countryside starts where the pavement ends.

Walking without bravado

The tourist office doesn't exist, so maps appear by word of mouth. The most straightforward circuit follows the old drove road south-west towards the hamlet of Foxo, 3 km away. The path is wide enough for two cows abreast, flanked by dry-stone walls and hawthorn that blossoms in late April. Waymarks are intermittent: a yellow arrow fading on a telegraph pole, a scallop shell nailed to a gatepost by someone who once walked to Santiago. Gradient is gentle, but after rain the clay holds water like a sponge; boots with tread are advised from October to May.

Closer to the village, three cruceiros—stone crosses mounted on pillars—mark medieval crossroads that cars now bypass. They are not grand, rarely more than a metre and a half high, but lichen has turned the granite the colour of old bruise. On still evenings swallows use them as lookout posts, the only traffic for miles.

If you want height, the track past the municipal cemetery climbs 200 m to the wind-farm ridge. The reward is a view west towards the distant Atlantic, though more often the horizon dissolves into a grey wash. The turbines hum like distant traffic; below, Meira's roofs appear as a rust-red punctuation in a paragraph of green.

Food for days that might turn wet

Lunch is served early. By one-thirty the bars are already ladling caldo gallego—cabbage, potato and white-bean broth sharpened with pancetta—from dented steel pots. A full portion costs €2.80 and arrives with a basket of country bread that you tear, never slice. The house wine is young and sharp enough to make your gums tingle; locals mix it with gaseosa lemonade for a makeshift spritzer.

Seasons dictate the rest of the menu. April brings tetilla cheese still cool from the dairy, July means peppers de Padrón that might or might not ignite, October is for game stew thickened with chestnuts. Pudding is usually something your grandmother would recognise: rice with cinnamon, or filloas—thin crêpes—spread with the previous autumn's honey. Vegetarians will manage, but only just; ask for "ensalada sin atún" to avoid the default tuna topping.

Evening eating is more limited. One café stays open until ten, serving tortilla and plates of cold cuts. Anything fancier requires a 25-minute drive to Monforte de Lemos, where regional specialities come with Michelin-recommended trim and prices to match.

When the valley parties

Meira's fiesta mayor occupies the first weekend of August. The timetable is printed on a single A4 sheet taped to shop windows and rarely changes. Friday night: brass band in the plaza, free distribution of octopus boiled in copper cauldrons. Saturday: ox-pulling contest in the showground followed by a disco that thumps until the Guardia Civil suggest otherwise. Sunday: solemn mass, bagpipe procession, and a communal lunch of roast pork sold by raffle ticket. Visitors are welcome but not announced; if you buy a beer you are, by default, included.

Spring brings the Feira do Grelo on Palm Sunday. Grelo translates misleadingly as "broccoli"; here it denotes the tender tops of turnip greens that appear after winter. Stalls line the main street selling bunches the size of tennis balls, along with honey, knitted socks and hardware that will definitely fail EU safety directives. Go early; by noon the produce is picked over and half the county has retired to the bars for wine and gossip.

Arriving, staying, leaving

The only public transport is a Monday-to-Friday bus from Lugo at 07:45, returning at 14:00. It serves schoolchildren and pensioners; tourists are an anomaly. With a car, take the A-6 motorway to exit 483, then the LU-633 for 22 km of curves that tighten as you climb. In winter the pass can ice over; carry chains between December and February, and don't trust Google timing—add twenty minutes for stray cattle and the farmer who insists on chatting in the middle of the road.

Accommodation is limited to two guest-houses, each with fewer than a dozen rooms. Expect pine furniture, radiators that gurgle, and Wi-Fi that remembers dial-up fondly. Double rooms start at €45 including breakfast (toast, coffee, homemade jam). There is no reception desk after nine; let them know if you'll arrive late or the door will be bolted.

The honest forecast

Come for the pace, not the postcard. Meira will not fill an itinerary; you will leave with more photographs of mossy stone than of identifiable monuments. On clear evenings the light turns amber at seven and the air smells of cut grass and diesel, an oddly comforting combination. On misty days visibility drops to fifty metres and every footstep echoes back from the whitewash. Either mood is authentic; the village does not rearrange itself for admiration.

Pack for changeable weather even in July. Bring boots if you intend to leave the tarmac, and a torch because street-lighting switches off at midnight. If you need nightlife, museums, or souvenir shops, keep driving west until you hit the coast. If you want to see how Galicia functions when nobody is watching, stay a day or two. The tractor will still reverse out at nine-thirty, but after a while you might stop noticing the sound, which is when Meira has done its quiet work.