Why I spent a week in Galicia eating my weight in seafood

The first thing Santiago did was wash my arrival clean. Rain ticked against the station windows, taxis gleamed on wet cobbles, and pilgrims in yellow shells slipped past with waterproof covers over their bags. By the time I reached a narrow lane near the cathedral, my shoes were soaked and my camera bag felt heavier. It was not romantic weather, yet the city seemed pleased by it, every slate roof shining under streetlights. Learn more about The Hidden Courtyards Of Granada S Albaicín And The Stories They Hold.

I came for one week with a loose plan: Santiago de Compostela, the coast, a few islands and as much food as I could reasonably justify. Seafood was the thread, not the whole itinerary. I wanted to see how it reached the table, who caught it, and whether the best meals were expensive tourist performances or ordinary things bought with plastic bags and a few euros. That curiosity was easier to follow than a list of sights.

Travel in Galicia rewards a flexible map. Trains ran south toward Vigo and north toward A Coruña, while local buses handled smaller towns such as Combarro and Muros. Distances looked short on paper, but rain, winding roads and village festivals made every journey part of the story. I bought regional rail tickets as they appeared on the Renfe app, carried cash for tiny cafés and learned to ask for la cuenta before the bill became a surprise.

Food also set the pace. Cafés might not serve breakfast until after nine, lunch could stretch past three, and dinner began when the sky darkened. Many signs used Galician first, with Spanish nearby, so my phrase book filled quickly with useful additions rather than heroic vocabulary. As someone used to Melbourne’s café rhythm and Sydney’s early starts, I adapted by treating the market as breakfast and keeping an afternoon coffee as insurance against hunger.

The cathedral was only the first course

Climbing the cathedral steps in the wet gave me the classic view of the Praza do Obradoiro, but the interior was quieter and more absorbing. Candles trembled beside the Portico of Glory, and the scent of incense mixed with rain-cloth in the nave. I photographed the baroque façade later, when low cloud lifted and made its stone appear almost pink, yet the memory I kept was of silence interrupted by a guide’s whispered explanation.

Outside, an elderly pilgrim asked whether I was walking the Camino. When I said I had come mainly for lunch, she laughed and pointed toward the market. Her advice proved exact: go early, follow the fish and eat whatever the seller says is best that morning. She ordered pulpo á feira for two, then demonstrated how to lift each piece of octopus from the potato with a fork.

That first plate cost less than I expected, especially once I shared the enormous circular dish with the pilgrim and a pair of cyclists. A main course, potatoes and a drink came to €18, paid without ceremony. Unlike a Sydney restaurant, where good service can be rewarded with a tip, a euro in the shared jar bought coffee for the table. I converted the amount into Australian dollars and laughed at how ordinary the meal felt.

The market set the rhythm

At Mercado de Abastos, ice glittered beneath trays of fish laid in careful rows. Mussels came in sacks, oysters wore shells like crusted jewellery, and prawns curled pink against the cold. Galician names such as percebes and vieiras appeared on cards beside Spanish ones. For the price, the merchant lifted a goose barnacle from the ice, snapped its hard exterior and offered the plump centre for me to taste before committing.

This was livelier than the familiar rhythm of Melbourne’s Queen Victoria Market, where a busy deli counter often becomes the social anchor of a morning. It also felt different from Sydney’s Pyrmont Fish Market, where restaurant buyers and commuters create a pre-dawn spectacle around the wholesale stalls. Here the best exchange happened at the counter: a joke, a recommendation, then a paper bag filled for dinner. The interaction mattered as much as the choice.

By late afternoon, the raw displays had become plans for supper. Grilled sardines, peppery mussels and a wedge of lemon filled a paper-lined plate for less than a formal dinner in A Coruña. I ate on a plastic chair, wiping salt from my fingers with bread while a television showed regional football. In Australia, that part of the day is often called arvo and prompts a flat white; in Santiago, it was simply when hunger finally caught up with me.

Muros connected the shellfish to the sea

Muros gave the week its clearest sense of scale. The harbour curved beneath the old town, blue fishing boats nudging one another while gulls argued over discarded bait. Women known locally as vivas have long carried fish through these streets in woven baskets, and their presence still gives the waterfront a working rhythm. I followed the smell of diesel and salt to a tiny counter where a cooked goose barnacle had been split open for tasting.

The barnacle tasted faintly of the sea, then butter and iodine, with a texture closer to a tender seafood morsel than shellfish. A dozen cost €22, so I bought six and ate them beside the harbour while gulls studied the waxed paper. A fisherman nearby told me to add lemon and sea salt, then watched approvingly as I copied his ritual. The shellfish was expensive, but the conversation and the view were free.

From Muros, the sea looked capable of swallowing the town, which made taking the ferry from Vigo to the Cíes Islands feel wonderfully careless. Turquoise water appeared between dark cliffs, and empty beaches in early summer gave me room to frame sand, rock and foam without crowds. When rain erased the horizon, I photographed the same cove through a shelter and waited for the colour to return.

Slowing down revealed more of the coast

Combarro was only a short bus ride from Muros, but its raised granaries, the hórreos, changed the scale of the landscape. Narrow lanes led between stone houses with tiny balconies, fishing boats rested on the shore, and vines climbed beyond the village. At a terrace beside the harbour, I ordered pimientos de Padrón and mussels with empanada while a rain shower darkened the roofs across the water.

Nearby, the Rías Baixas vineyards produce Galician wine under the Albariño designation. In a small bodega, I tasted a bright young bottle beside a platter of mussels and razor clams. The wine had more citrus and mineral bite than the richer sparkling styles I often reach for at home in Australia, and its sharpness worked perfectly with the shellfish. Lunch cost less than the ferry ticket I had booked that morning.

Rain became part of the photography rather than an obstacle. It softened Combarro’s granite, brightened the green vines and sent reflections down empty lanes. One afternoon, I abandoned the camera and followed locals into a village café for coffee and a warm slice of tarta de Santiago. The almond cake was dense with nuts, the window steamed with damp coats, and the unplanned pause gave the town more room to become real.

The cities gave the food a sharper edge

Vigo is Galicia’s industrial port, yet the seafood remains central to daily life. Near the waterfront, I ate oysters from a metal counter while trawlers unloaded beyond the road. The shells were smaller and sweeter than the large Sydney rock oysters familiar from Australian dinner tables, with a brief lemon-and-brine finish. Later, a bowl of steaming caldo de mar warmed me after a walk along the estuary.

A Coruña offered a different kind of seafood city. Its glass-fronted balconies faced a wind-battered promenade where the Atlantic appeared between buildings on clear days. I wandered away from the main squares, found a tiny bar and ordered grilled chirlas with a potato salad. Outside, football supporters streamed past; inside, plates arrived quickly, the servers called atención without hurry, and nobody expected a long formal meal.

I ended the Spanish journey in Granada rather than returning immediately from Galicia, and the change of landscape felt like stepping into another country. After the Atlantic rain, Andalusia offered dry light, tiled alleys and cooling stone rooms. I followed that change into the Granada’s hidden courtyards, where the city’s domestic lives unfolded behind doors that looked plain from the street. The contrast sharpened my feeling that Galician food belongs to its damp Atlantic landscape.

A week of shellfish left a lasting itinerary

By day seven, eating my weight in seafood felt less like exaggeration than poor planning. There was octopus with paprika and potatoes in Santiago, mussels in Combarro, oysters in Vigo, grilled sardines at the market and a memorable barnacle in Muros. I ate standing at counters, sharing paper-lined plates and carrying warm bags back through alleys before the last buses left.

Food and regional transport averaged roughly €45 a day. Most lunches cost between €12 and €16, while my priciest splurge was the €22 dozen goose barnacles. The better meals were rarely the most elaborate. They came from eating slowly, accepting a recommendation and recognising when a place served food made for nearby homes rather than visitors passing through.

What stayed with me was the connection between weather, work and appetite. Galicia’s rain, strong tides and small working harbours shaped the pace of the coast, while the markets brought that landscape inland. My next concrete step is to book a room in Muros for October and put the Cíes ferry and Sunday market on the calendar.