Manzaneda

The hire-car thermometer drops a full five degrees in the last eighteen kilometres. One moment you’re winding through vineyards on the A-52, the next you’re above the treeline on the OU-615, the radio crackling with Portuguese pop as Porto’s weekenders race past in roof-boxed estates. At the pass, 1,700 m up in the Serra de Queixa, the air thins and the stone houses of Manzaneda village appear like a geological afterthought—slate roofs pinned to the hillside by centuries of wind.

This is the highest municipality in Galicia, and it behaves like it. The weather app may promise sunshine, but clouds can bubble up from the valley floor in minutes, swallowing the ski lifts that dominate the ridge above the village. Manzaneda’s year still revolves around snow: when the first flakes stick, the population swells from nine hundred to several thousand, mostly families from Ourense and northern Portugal who prefer short queues and gentle pistes to the Pyrenean circus. The resort’s seventeen kilometres of runs are served by four chairlifts and a rash of snow-cannons; enough for a confident eight-year-old to nail their first parallel turn, but not for anyone expecting bowls of off-piste powder. Day passes run €35–€42, under-12s pay half, and equipment rental in the base building is painless if you pre-book online—turn-up punters can wait forty minutes while a lone attendant hunts for matching boot sizes.

Come April, the lifts close with minimal ceremony. The mountain doesn’t shut down, it simply changes uniform. Pine and oak forests that were blurred by flurries re-emerge, crisscrossed with way-marked biking and hiking loops graded green to black. The 22-km “Ruta de los Miradores” strings together five stone balconies that hover over the Valdeorras vineyards one minute and the Trevinca peaks the next. You’ll meet more cattle than people; the only traffic jam is likely to be a farmer moving his herd between high-summer pastures. British riders who’ve tired of the Alps’ lift queues talk about the area’s single-track as “morally boosting”—wide enough for error, technical enough for fun, and empty enough to stop for a sandwich without creating a tailback.

Down in the village, eight kilometres below the ski access road, life reverts to a slower gear. Stone granaries (hórreos) balance on stilts above vegetable plots, their slatted walls designed to keep rats from last autumn’s chestnuts. The parish church of Santa María, rebuilt in 1787 after a fire, has a wooden altarpiece gilded with Brazilian gold that arrived courtesy of emigrants who left for Caracas in the 1950s and still return each August, filling the pews and the bars. There is no museum, no interpretive centre, just a village that carries on. If you want a guide, ask in the bakery opposite the church—Marisol keeps the key to the Romanesque chapel at San Xoán de Río and will walk you over for a few euros, chatting in Galician that veers towards Portuguese when she’s excited.

Food is mountain fuel, not beach fare. Caldo gallego, a broth of greens, potatoes and white beans, arrives in deep bowls with a hunk of country bread; ask for it sin chorizo if you need a vegetarian version. The local ternera gallega—blond mountain cattle that graze above 1,000 m—ends up as thick steaks served rare on cast-iron platters that keep cooking the meat while you sip a glass of Ribeira Sacra. Dessert is almost always tarta de Santiago, an almond tart stamped with the cross of St James; the resort café does a decent version, but the homemade ones appearing at the village fiesta in July come with a glass of aguardiente and a sing-along that doesn’t wind up until the Guardia Civil remind the organisers about noise bylaws.

Staying the night makes sense if you want dawn on the ridge without a dawn start. The Hotel Estación de Montaña is literally ski-in: step out of the lift, swipe your key card, dump your boots on the heated rack. Rooms are functional rather than flash—expect laminate floors, family-sized bathrooms and a balcony wide enough for two pairs of skis. Half-board is €78 per person in high season, dropping to €55 once the snow melts. Summer visitors often prefer the stone houses converted into tourist apartments in the village itself: two-bed flats from €70 with fireplaces and firewood thrown in, handy when evening temperatures slide towards single figures even in July. Whichever you choose, fill the tank and stock up in Puebla de Trives on the way up; the village has one small supermercado and the mountain hostelery shuts its kitchen at 10 p.m. sharp.

The practical warnings are refreshingly blunt. Snow chains are compulsory on the access road several days each winter; the Guardia set up ad-hoc checkpoints and turn unprepared cars around. Phone coverage is patchy on the upper slopes—download offline maps before you leave the valley. There is no cash machine above Puebla de Trives; the resort bar’s card reader fails when the router freezes, so tuck a €20 note into your ski jacket. And if you’re expecting apres-ski nightlife, bring your own playlist and a bottle of orujo; the liveliest evening entertainment is usually a Spanish school group trying karaoke at the base lodge.

Manzaneda doesn’t sell itself as a hidden paradise—Galicians have been coming here for decades, and the Portuguese discovered it years ago. What it offers is scale without crowds, weather that keeps you honest, and a landscape that swaps sea for sky. On a clear evening, when the setting sun backlights the pine ridges and the only sound is the hum of the chairlift shutting down, you realise the village’s greatest luxury is altitude: the coast’s humid heat feels a continent away. Just remember to descend before the fog rolls in; the mountain has no patience for late-night navigation, and the only thing more humbling than Galicia’s weather is the bill for a mountain rescue.