Traveling in Spain: Lugo. Part two

View on Lugo from Roman Fortress Wall

After we satisfied ourselves with delicious dishes and had a little walk in the city before leaving it, we set out for Lugo. The distance between Leon and Lugo is around 250 kilometers. By car one can get there in three hours. While driving we talked and exchanged our impressions of Leon, and listened to Slava’s lecture about Lugo, the city of no lesser interest and even a greater fame compared to Leon. The heat of the afternoon gave way for the evening cool, and the landscapes amused our eyes with their green growths and variety of colours. The sun gave us a hint that we were approaching Lugo. It was shining so softly and amiably that it was not difficult to guess that sunset was coming soon, and we would be lost in the embrace of the Spanish night.

Before we got through the discussion of the intricacies of human existence, we found ourselves driving in Lugo. The city of Lugo is located in the north-west of Spain, and it is the oldest city in Galicia. Lugo welcomed us with its arms wide open: with its straight streets that were occasionally cut by rotundas (round intersections without traffic lights). Sitting on a hill, the city is virtually drowning in green growth. Lugo is surrounded by three rivers:  Minho, Rato and Chanca.

Fortress Wall

According to one version, Lugo was founded by a Celtic tribe of the Lugos cult, keepers of the Grail and God of Light. Later the city was conquered by the army of Paulus Fabius Maximus, and it was named Lucus Augusti. According to another version, the name Lucus Augusti comes from Latin word lucus which means “holy grove” or “holy meadow,” because the city was founded on a site of a small grove. In 13 AD, when the Roman Empire finished conquering the Iberian Peninsula, Lugo was mentioned as a Roman military camp. Although the city was small in size and population, Lugo was one of the most important Roman cities. The city was located in the area that was rich in gold – the object of intense interest in the times of the Roman Empire. Lugo was lying along the old Roman road leading from Bracara to Asturica; and not far from the bridge over the Minho River there were the famous in that whole area Roman baths, where the travelers enjoyed resting and taking a hot bath

Steeples of Lugo Cathedral

Lugo (former Lucus) was the seat of a bishopric until the end of the 5th century, and later it became an administrative center of the Suebi and Visigoths. After that, there was a period of decline for the city. Its territories lay desolate and unpopulated. In the middle of the 8th century, bishop Odoario set about reviving Lugo. 10th century for Lugo was an attempt at rebuilding its abandoned city tenements, but all these efforts seemed to be in vain. Lugo was only a town on paper, as the seat of a bishopric. In the 11th century, this is how Richard Fletcher wrote about Lugo in his works, “Its commercial and industrial role in the country was insignificant.” Only during the Classical Middle Ages¹ it was possible to revive the city and give it a new start.

City of Lugo at Night

(¹Classical Middle Ages or High Middle Ages — is a period of European history that lasted approximately from the middle of the 11th century till the end of the 14th century. The Period of High Middle Ages succeeded Early Middle Ages and preceded Late Middle Ages (14-16th centuries). The main characteristic tendency of this period was a rapid boost in Europe’s population that resulted in radical changes in the social, political, and other spheres of life).

Percebes

After we registered at the hotel we decided to walk through Lugo at night and look at its attractions in the rays of the setting sun. The main sights of Lugo were located not far from our hotel. But the chief landmark which is also an object of the World Heritage List by UNESCO is the fortified Roman wall built in the Roman period.

Built by the Romans in the 3rd century, the Fortress Wall encircles the entire old city of Lugo, and it is one of the most well preserved fortified Roman walls in Spain. The overall length of the fortified wall is more than two kilometers; and it has 71 towers, according to one version, or 82 towers, according to another one, and 10 gates. The thickness of the walls reaches from 4 to 6 meters, and its height – from 10 to 15 meters. From the fortress wall one can see the enthralling sights of the city and of its surrounding area. In the evenings, the city dwellers take a leisure walk on the wall, waiting for the dinner time, or sometimes they go jogging there.

After we walked through a little section of the Roman wall and enjoyed the views that open from its height, also realizing that people who lived before us just like us admired these views that opened to them from the wall, we decided to go down and walk through the city that was immersing into the night and take opportunity of the city’s hospitality and eat dinner at some place.

At night the streets of Lugo came alive and became crowded. Life pulsed everywhere, and numerous cafes and restaurants were filled with townsfolk and guests of Lugo. Our choice fell on a restaurant that displayed an unthinkable variety of seafood, fish, and gifts of the sea in its show-case windows. The choice we made proved to be right. The restaurant and its personnel fascinated us with their care and hospitality, and with their hearty welcome. We barely sat down when a joyful and happy waiter came up to us to inquire of our preferences and choices and began to propose the dishes cooked by the restaurant’s chefs according to the traditional recipes with the freshest gifts of the sea, fish, and seafood. The prawns were energetically lashing with their tails, and scallops, or grooved carpet shells, were clapping their valves. The scallops and prawns were served with a cool local white wine, which like nothing else enriched the taste of seafood and emphasized the aroma of the freshly grilled fish. But the true specialty and pleasant surprise of our dinner was gooseneck barnacles, in Spanish this sea delicacy is called percebes, – of an amazing taste and absolutely hideous appearance. Goose barnacles look like turtle’s legs with claws that have never been pedicured in the whole life. These “sea creepy things”, or more properly crustaceans, look like something in between the clams and the lobsters. I learned about goose barnacles from a cooking show of a British chef Gordon Ramsey. And I knew that these crustaceans are very delicious and it is very difficult to collect them, because they dwell in the most dangerous parts of the sea shore – on steep rocks, where the sea waves crash to supply these crustaceans with water rich with oxygen and plankton.

Our first Spanish night left an unforgettable impression with all of us. We were overcome by emotions awakened in us by Leon and Lugo at night, by Spanish hospitality, and centuries-long history and culture of the Spanish people, and, of course, by the dishes of the Spain’s regional cuisines. The next morning we planned an appointment with our guide in Northern Spain, Andrei, a visit to the Cathedral in Lugo, receiving our pilgrims’ certificates, and… the beginning of our Camino from Lugo to Santiago de Compostela.