My weekend in Ourense

Part of the Cathedral

This past weekend some of my friends and I traveled to Ourense, which is one of the larger cities here in Galicia.  We were able to take the train and it was only a two hour trip.  It's more inland than Coruna and has a very different feel.  Currently Coruna is one of the largest cities in Galicia, but it developed more recently than the other cities in Galicia so it has a much newer feel.  It is Europe so it still feels older than most parts of the US, but for Spain it is a relatively newer city.  The way I see it, the modernity of Coruna makes it a great place to live, but it makes travelling to the other parts of Spain even more interesting.  Ourense has some really interesting older buildings, there's a Plaza Mayor and a really neat Cathedral. One of the cool things about Spain is that many of the cities have tourism offices where you can go to get information about the best places to visit, a map of the cities and information about the historic sites.  After we checked into our Hostel on Saturday, we stopped by the tourism office to pick up a map and find out the hours of the museums and places we wanted to visit.  Since we arrived to the city too early for lunch but we were all hungry, we stopped at a chocolateria  to have coffee and some churros.  Then we explored the city, most of the museums had closed for lunch by that point but we were able to walk around and enjoy the architecture of the city.  After walking around the city and burning off our churros we stopped for lunch at a really nice restaurant.  The great thing about Spain is that if you take advantage of a menu del dia you can eat very well for a very economic price.  We were able to choose a first plate, an entree, dessert or coffee and water or wine for 10 euro.  The food was delicious, and the region of Galicia we were in is known for its wine so all in all a delicious meal.

Part of the Plaza Mayor

In the afternoon we went inside the Cathedral which was pretty cool.  It's always hard to believe how old some of the buildings are here.  We also went to an exhibit about the Iberos, the pre-romanic people who lived in southern Spain while the Celts inhabited Northern Spain.  It was a very nice exhibit sponsored by one of the banks in Spain.  We wandered around the exhibit and then when it was time for the guided tour to start the tour guide asked the group whether they wanted the tour in gallego or castellano, the tour ended up being in gallego since there were more natives in the tour and we were so tired we weren't sure if we were going to stay for the entire tour.  I actually understand more of the gallego tour than I thought I would, so I guess I've absorbed more at the school than I thought.

The thermal pool in the city

A cool fact about Ourense is that there are natural hot springs there.  The Romans had baths in Ourense by the hot springs and right next to some of the ruins of the Roman baths are newer "termales" thermal pools which are open to the public.  Friday evening after a short siesta at the hostel, we went to the pool in the city which is right next to the ruins of the Roman baths.  On Sunday we took a bus to some pools outside the city which overlook the river and are surrounded by trees and shrubbery.  That was really interesting because you could walk down near the river and see exactly where the source of the hot spring was and smell the sulfur.  It was a really cool experience.  One of the pamphlets we had on Ourense listed Ourense as the second most important thermal city in Europe.  However, when we got home I tried to look up what the most important thermal city was in Europe and Ourense wasn't even on any of the lists I found, so I'm a little perplexed as to what Ourense is the second most in Europe.  Overall it was an amazing trip and I have so many more pictures to upload to facebook but the past few times I've tried to upload them facebook has malfunctioned, so those will be coming soon!

Pools near the river