Vilamartín de Valdeorras

The slate roofs catch the morning light first, turning silver before the valley proper wakes up. From the N-120 that threads through Vilamartín de Valdeorras, the terraces look like someone has pressed giant thumbprints into every south-facing slope—each ridge filled with vines, each vine held in place by dry-stone walls older than the road itself. This is not the Galicia of Atlantic rias and seafood platters; it is the interior wedge where the Meseta Central spills into the Sil canyon, and the language of choice in the fields is still Gallego, not English.

A Landscape You Walk Into, Not Past

Guide-books tend to mark the village as a drive-through on the way to the Roman gold mines at Las Médulas, forty minutes south. That suits the 5,000 locals fine. There is no ticket office, no hop-on-hop-off bus, and—crucially—no coach park. What you get instead is a working countryside where the agricultural timetable sets the rhythm. At 08:00 the tractors buzz down from higher hamlets to the cooperative winery on the outskirts; by 14:00 the same lanes are empty while everyone is inside eating. Understanding that pattern is the difference between seeing shuttered streets and catching life in motion.

Start at the parish church of Santa María, more landmark than monument. Its square doubles as the bus stop, the cash-point queue and the Saturday vegetable stall. From here any lane heading uphill leads within minutes to vines, chestnut groves and views that stretch across the Sil to the opposite sierra. The gradient is gentle at first—perfect for stretching legs after the 1 h 45 min drive from Santiago—then firms up, rewarding walkers with bench seats carved into stone walls that face south-west towards the afternoon sun. Bring water; cafés are thin on the ground once you leave the centre.

Wine That Costs Less Than the Glass at Home

Valdeorras is Spain’s easternmost DO for Godello, the white grape that tastes like green apple and wet stone rather than the lemon-cream of Rioja. Grapes have been grown here since the Romans, and the terraces you are strolling through supply half the bars in Madrid’s Chamberí district—yet you will rarely see the name on a British shelf. That is changing, slowly, but for the moment the easiest way to taste is to ring one of the eight family bodegas dotted around the municipality. A typical visit lasts ninety minutes, costs €8-€12 and includes three wines plus bread rubbed with tomato and olive oil. Expect to finish in the garden, tipping the remains of your glass onto the gravel while the owner explains why the 2022 frost meant no Mencía rosado this year. Reserve by WhatsApp the day before; English is limited but enthusiasm is unlimited.

If formal tastings feel too much like school, simply order by the glass in Bar A Cova on Rúa do Progreso. The house Godello comes in a generous 150 ml pour for €1.20—about the price of a London tube-ride—and arrives in a tumbler, not a fish-bowl stem. Pair it with a plate of pulpo á feira: octopus softened in copper cauldrons, snipped with scissors at the table and dusted with pimentón that stains your fingertips rusty red.

When the Valley Floods with Gold, Not Water

Spring arrives late at 300 m above sea level. Bud-break in the vineyards is mid-April, and for two weeks the terraces glow an almost luminous lime-green against the dark slate. By late May the chestnut trees have unfolded their full span, creating tunnels of shade over the old drove roads that once took cattle south to winter pasture in Extremadura. These caminos reales are now way-marked as short circular walks—anything from 3 km to 12 km—starting at the picnic site in A Barxa, five minutes by car from the church. Stone mileage posts give distances in leagues, not kilometres; ignore the archaic numbers and follow the spray-painted yellow arrows that reassure Camino walkers.

Autumn is the mirror season. Harvest begins the second week of September and the whole valley smells of grape must and diesel from the mobile de-stemmers that crawl from plot to plot. If you time it right you can help foot-tread a small vat—most growers allow volunteers for the photo opportunity, though you will be hosed down afterwards. Nights cool quickly; pack a fleece for 7 p.m. even if lunchtime touched 28 °C.

Sundays, Midges and Other Honest Details

Come prepared for small frustrations. Public transport is a single morning bus from Ourense that reaches Vilamartín at 11:15 and turns round at 13:30; miss it and the next departure is Monday. The only cash machine locks its door between 14:00 and 16:00, and many bars enforce a €10 minimum for cards. In July and August the river beach at nearby Ponte Bibei is a godsend for cooling off, but the midges arrive at dusk with the efficiency of the RAF: take repellent or resign yourself to blotchy ankles. Sunday lunchtime everything shuts except the roadside garage on the N-120, where you can buy an emergency bocadillo of tortilla eaten standing beside the diesel pump. None of these is a disaster, yet together they explain why the village remains almost absent from British TripAdvisor.

Making It Work

Base yourself for one or two nights, not a week. Stay in the converted rectory just above the church—six rooms, no lift, Wi-Fi that copes with email but not Netflix—and use the car to zig-zag between hamlets. Drive up to Pumbariño at sunset when the last tractors have clocked off: the view across the Sil gorge is better than any tasting-note descriptor of “mineral length”. Drop into the small ethnography museum in an old horreo; the curator will insist you sniff a basket of drying chestnuts so you understand why the county’s empanada filling tastes faintly of smoke.

Leave time for the unplanned. One afternoon a farmer may flag you down to help shove a startled sheep back through a fence; your reward will be directions to a clearing where second-world-war refugees planted a walnut that now overhangs a slate shrine. You will not find that on Google Maps, and that, rather than any single monument, is why you came.

Pack walking shoes, a corkscrew and a sense of slower time. Vilamartín will supply the rest—just don’t expect it to make a fuss about it.