Una mesa para seis - Table for Six: Portugal and Galicia Trip

December 31st, 2015 - Ourense

We packed up our stuff, left Lisbon and headed north to the town of Ourense in the Galicia province of Spain. It was about a 5 hour drive to Ourense, but because Portugal is one hour ahead of Spain, we arrived earlier than we thought we would. We found our rental house which was located in the small village of Cenlle, about 20 minutes outside of Ourense. The house was huge with plenty of room for all of us and the owner was very friendly and helpful.

I told my friend Masumi, an ASB mother, about the hot springs in Ourense and she decided that they would like to visit them also. We planned to meet up in Ourense on Dec. 31st. There are a bunch of free public hot springs located along the banks of the Minho River and many private spas that you need to pay for, but they are all very inexpensive, around 5€ entrance fee. Masumi, her husband Mello and kids (Enzo and Lucca) met up with us at the Termas Muíño da Veiga. Even though the hot springs are the main attraction in Ourense, they are quite difficult to access. It took us a long time to find the very narrow road that led to a place where you could park near the river. Masumi and Mello also had a hard time and ended up parked on the other side of the river.

But, it was worth the trouble, the Termas Muíño da Veiga are amazing. There are 5 open-air pools of varying temperatures. The pools are clean and well maintained and it's completely free and open to the public all year round. The hottest pool was around 45˚C. It was too hot for Cole, but perfect for my parents. The largest pool was cooler at around 35˚C, but perfect for the kids to play in. It was such a treat for them to swim outside on December 31st! It was cloudy, but not too cold and we were fortunate that it wasn't raining. We spent a good two hours in the hot springs and I am sure the kids would have stayed longer, but everyone was getting hungry.

It was around 7:30pm when we left the hot springs and so began our next adventure: trying to find somewhere to eat on New Years Eve in Ourense. I honestly didn't think it would be that difficult to find a restaurant, but in the city many restaurants were actually closed and the restaurants that were open were completely booked or too expensive. We could not even find a MacDonald's or corner store. The streets of downtown Ourense were oddly deserted and we wandered almost an hour unable to find anything.

Finally I looked on Google Maps and was able to find a Chinese Restaurant a few minutes away. We know from experience that you can always count on the Chinese to be open and willing to feed you. We had a similar experience in Malaga on New Years Eve last year. The restaurant is called Gran Muralla and even though they were completely full, they set up additional tables in their front lobby for all 12 of us. The kids were happy, we ordered sushi and lots of other Chinese dishes. We finished eating just before midnight, and thought we could ring in the New Year at the main square. People had gathered in anticipation of some kind of celebration, there was a large stage set up and even police presence, but at midnight absolutely nothing happened. It was so strange, maybe the organizers were on strike or forgot what day it was.

further down the river there were other public thermal pools, but unfortunately they were not hot.
Maybe they are only open certain times of the year or they were down for maintenance.