Moving to Galicia

Hi,

My husband, 2 young boys and I are looking to move to the Galicia Region (prob Ourense).  We would like any information regarding the region, eg. schools and the genral life in this area.  I am English and speak a little Spanish and my husband is South American and speaks fluenty.  Any information on buying a property & the property market would be appreciated.

Thank you for your time

xxx

Hi

I can only give you our opinion on the region based on our travels there a few years ago, but given that many foreigners have never visited that part of Spain I thought it might be more helpful than nothign!

We we intending to spend about 2 weeks driving round Galicia in our camper van as part of our travels round the entire country. VERY green, VERY lush, quite rough and ready (not necessarily in a negative sense). I've never been to rural Ireland, but I'd guess it would be cut from the same mould? We were there at the end of July / beginning of August and for every good day of weather it chucked it down, pretty heavily, for 2 days.

I speak fluent Spanish (i.e I work in Spanish as well as English, rather than I can order a beer without getting it wrong) and I found the language up there pretty tricky. To me it sounded more like Portuguese than Spanish and everybody spoke it. In fact, having met a few Gallegos and their circle of friends, it became apparent that there was quite a strong regionalist / separatist sentiment up there and that the Gallegos appeared to identify themselves with the Portuguese more than the Spaniards!

The locals that we met (in particular in a town called Cambados - home to Albariño wine!) were all pretty friendly and welcoming.

Great food, especially if seafood is your thing which, alas, it isn't ours particularly, but the wine more than made up for it.

VERY confusing road signs.

But, alas, the weather. We found it a little oppressive after a while, and I don't actually mind the rain in sensible measures! Could be that we were living in a campervan at the time, but we got pretty fed up with it. We were told that the weather that we experienced was completely normal for that time of the year.

I can't comment on aspects of actually living there, just our tourist impressions. I wouldn't live there personally, but that's just me. Funnily enough, I would have loved to have lived in next-door Asturias, and that was hardly the Sahara! The girlfriend (now the Mrs) likes the sun too much, so here we are!

Hope this little helps.

Hi

I can only give you our opinion on the region based on our travels there a few years ago, but given that many foreigners have never visited that part of Spain I thought it might be more helpful than nothign!

We we intending to spend about 2 weeks driving round Galicia in our camper van as part of our travels round the entire country. VERY green, VERY lush, quite rough and ready (not necessarily in a negative sense). I've never been to rural Ireland, but I'd guess it would be cut from the same mould? We were there at the end of July / beginning of August and for every good day of weather it chucked it down, pretty heavily, for 2 days.

I speak fluent Spanish (i.e I work in Spanish as well as English, rather than I can order a beer without getting it wrong) and I found the language up there pretty tricky. To me it sounded more like Portuguese than Spanish and everybody spoke it. In fact, having met a few Gallegos and their circle of friends, it became apparent that there was quite a strong regionalist / separatist sentiment up there and that the Gallegos appeared to identify themselves with the Portuguese more than the Spaniards!

The locals that we met (in particular in a town called Cambados - home to Albariño wine!) were all pretty friendly and welcoming.

Great food, especially if seafood is your thing which, alas, it isn't ours particularly, but the wine more than made up for it.

VERY confusing road signs.

But, alas, the weather. We found it a little oppressive after a while, and I don't actually mind the rain in sensible measures! Could be that we were living in a campervan at the time, but we got pretty fed up with it. We were told that the weather that we experienced was completely normal for that time of the year.

I can't comment on aspects of actually living there, just our tourist impressions. I wouldn't live there personally, but that's just me. Funnily enough, I would have loved to have lived in next-door Asturias, and that was hardly the Sahara! The girlfriend (now the Mrs) likes the sun too much, so here we are!

Hope this little helps.