It would have been nice to include some vineyard visits on our trip, but none of the good wine areas were on our route, so we settled for finding a good bodegas or two where we could buy a selection of wine from across Spain. Luckily there was such a good bodegas in Vilalba, among its credentials being that it supplied the hotel with wine. We missed it on our walk down the main street because it had no sign outside and just looked like a garage.
The purchase options looked a bit dubious inside as the wines were scattered along a couple of shelves, but closer inspection revealed a good range of northern white wines, so we settled on 6 Albariño and 6 Godello. They packed it all into a box, we checked out of the hotel and returned with the car. By this time we had decided to top up with 3 Rioja. All of this was on spec, not the normal way we purchase wine, but after a week of drinking mostly Albariño we thought we’d be on fairly safe ground.
Before leaving we exchanged some messages with a friend, Mary, who was walking the Camino to Santiago de Compostela. It happened that she was about 60 km from us and by taking the longer, southerly route to our hotel our paths might have crossed. However, the rain started to come down in buckets and the road map indicated a more difficult southerly route, so we opted for what we expected to be a quick whiz along the northern motorway followed by a shorter drive through scenic countryside to the hotel. The motorway bit was fine, but the next part took us along twisty, narrow roads, along river valleys and over mountain passes, dodging the occasional delivery vehicle on the way. With 50 km still to go on the sat nav we were not looking forward to the last part of the journey when, unexpectedly, we turned onto a regular style road that ran between the hills. The last 20 km went by swiftly and we turned into the huge car park of the Monasterio de Corias and its palatial Parador.
You can’t help but gasp on walking through the doors to see wide and lengthy corridors stretching in 2 directions. The walk to our room took us past what were previously monks’ cells, some with the original, low wooden doors. Any monk staying in our room would have enjoyed himself, although presumably all he had was a bed and some space.
After our journey through the mountains we checked our next location and found that we would be in for a double dose of mountain driving, so quickly switched our booking for a Parador in Gijón, a much easier drive from Corias and closer to Santander.
The old refectory is now a smart restaurant and we enjoyed a good lunch with a glass of local Corias wine, light and fruity with a melon or peach taste. Corias is one of the smallest DO areas in Spain. Most of the wine is cultivated from the upper slopes with little or no help from machinery. The price in the next door Bodegas, €15 – €20 a bottle – reflected this.
All Paradores have a smart TV system and good wi-fi, allowing you to stream a Netflix film from your device onto their screen. For some reason we had not tried this out until now, but it worked perfectly.