After 2 weeks in Pontevedra we moved to Vilagarcia de arousa (Pontevedra Province, Galicia) to keep looking for an apartment. When we first arrived we stayed on the beach half way between the main town and the small village of Carril, an old fishing village. There is a promenade that runs the whole way and it was a wonderful walk into either town from our apartment. The beach there also has plots of “land” in the water that is harvested for almejas y berberechos (close to what we know as pipis) by local owners. On the low tide, early in the morning the women would put on their waders and go to their plot and harvest the pipis. Interesting that it was pretty much 100% women.

We hoped our move to Vilagarcia to find an apartment would be succesful because after many discussions with agents and private owners in both Pontevedra and Vilagarcia we decided to apply for “temporada escolal” apartments. Because many of these coastal towns in Pontevedra province become very busy with Spanish tourists in summer, there are many apartments that will only rent September to June which is the school year. Applying for this type of accommodation suits us best as most permanent rentals only want to rent to you if your are working or you have to jump through hoops to secure one. It also means the apartments come with everything we need apart from our own linen.

We have rented a wonderful central apartent until the end of June. It is 3 bedrooms 2 bathrooms with a balcony overlooking the central part of the town and across to the ria for EUR600 per month so around AUD940. We will make new plans for after June.