{"id":61,"date":"2010-07-30T14:38:01","date_gmt":"2010-07-30T14:38:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saints-hosting.org.uk\/sadfish\/visitgalicia\/?p=61"},"modified":"2010-08-06T14:32:56","modified_gmt":"2010-08-06T14:32:56","slug":"our-second-visit-part-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.visitgalicia.co.uk\/?p=61","title":{"rendered":"Our second visit \u2013 part one"},"content":{"rendered":"

A brand new year (2010), lots of hope, the UK in the grip of\u00a0an arctic blast<\/a>\u00a0and we were following our hearts back to Galicia for house hunting trip number two. We opted\u00a0to\u00a0fly both ways\u00a0using Santiago de Compostela airport (taking our chances with Ryan Air) as despite\u00a0our arranging meetings in three out of the four\u00a0provinces of Galicia (Santiago de Compostela, Lugo and a Coruna) we’d already found out that the emptiness\u00a0and the quality of the roads meant that driving was once again a pleasure, rather than the chore that it\u00a0has become in England.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Rush hour on a Galician motorway (honest)<\/p><\/div>\n

We were\u00a0scheduled to meet three different estate agents over\u00a0four days and view around twenty pre-selected properties. We also now knew that in Galicia, house\u00a0inspection trips evolve\u00a0rather than operate to any planned timetable. The likelihood was that some of the houses\u00a0that we’d enquired about would inexplicably be dropped from the schedule, while others (those that an agent had not shown for a while) would get added to the list to keep their customers happy. Knowing this we developed a code to\u00a0get away from\u00a0a property as soon as possible, once one of us realised it was a non-starter (usually Amanda), the code was to stare at\u00a0at each other\u00a0and pull faces<\/a>! From the outset I wasn’t\u00a0convinced that\u00a0it would be that much of a secret.<\/p>\n

First up was John and Sieni from GaliciaVista<\/a>\u00a0(originally from the Netherlands) and whilst we saw a number of properties with great potential, most of them didn’t tick enough of our requirements boxes to merit detailed consideration. One property that they did show us would have been great, way out in the forest and with great views and land, but sadly it had just sold and we were only\u00a0being shown it\u00a0in case the sale fell through.<\/p>\n

Our guides saved the best until last as we headed into the twilight and Ortigueira<\/a>\u00a0up on the north coast. We got our first glimpse of the Galician wild horses, out on the moorland, a majestic sight which we would see again and again over coming days and trips.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Wild Horses near Ortigueira<\/p><\/div>\n

There are hundreds, maybe thousands of these horses all over the province of La Coruna. They are rounded up annually to have their manes cut for making brushes and some (avert your eyes anyone of a squeamish disposition) are culled for meat.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Six bedroomed Ortigueira House<\/p><\/div>\n

The house itself was out in the middle of nowhere in a small village of so few inhabitants that the state were now offering a monthly salary just to live there. The house was part converted and had a large field (finca) just over a small courtyard. The house had the potential for six plus bedrooms with plenty more living space and a couple of outbuildings, including a blacksmiths workshop,\u00a0that could also be converted into self-catering lets.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Blacksmiths Barn<\/p><\/div>\n

The problems were the price at 105.000 \u20ac (\u00a393,750 at the time), and that\u00a0it faced north-east restricting the amount of sun on the house. We spent an age in the village but in the end we decided it was another\u00a0to remove from\u00a0the list of potentials. We had spent the day\u00a0giving John a great idea of what we were after, he was now on the lookout for our ideal property.<\/p>\n

A quick meal, short sleep, and long drive and we were in the capable hands of Natalia from Galicia Holiday<\/a>. Our initial choices, mostly around A Lama<\/a>, were immediately dismissed as they were ‘too close\u00a0to the prison’. Instead, Natalia showed us four belters.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

L-shaped house with a big barn<\/p><\/div>\n

The first, in the eary morning sunshine which followed an almighty downpour, was a lovely L-shaped house where the majority of the downstairs was still milking stalls. After we broke in, the owner lost their key, we determined that upstairs was too dangerous to walk on and despite having the land, location, aspect and separate barn that we craved the stumbling block was a very narrow access between two houses that would have stopped anything other than a small hatchback getting to the house.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Modern House with Old Barn<\/p><\/div>\n

The second house was a joy and nightmare at the same time. The main house had been\u00a0refurbished and rendered in the 1990’s (as you can see above) and was,\u00a0at best, awful. It did, however, have a massive barn which\u00a0could have been a three storey conversion at the far end of which was the old bar complete with date stone over the door. The land was\u00a0a good size too and the aspect great but we’d have wanted to demolish the 20th century\u00a0out of the property.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Just a little too small<\/p><\/div>\n

House three was almost\u00a0not seen. Mud on the road almost spun us into a ditch but Natalia did well to recover the situation. This was a property that we’d seen on the internet and was quite close to a roman building now used as a church. It has a small separate barn which was a little too small, and despite good aspect and a fair amont of land, including a small forest, it wasn’t viable as a Casa Rural, especially at 110.000 \u20ac (\u00a398,000).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Great House, not enough space<\/p><\/div>\n

As dusk descended we headed for the final property of the day near A Estrada<\/a>\u00a0where we’d left our car ten hours earlier. This was a beautiful barn, once again with a lot of scope, but despite a vineyard and orchard the lack of any separate accommodation for us, and a price of 85.000 \u20ac (\u00a376,000)\u00a0meant that it wasn’t for us.<\/p>\n

Day three properties would prove to be much more interesting, as would the wildlife, but more about that in part two.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A brand new year (2010), lots of hope, the UK in the grip of\u00a0an arctic blast\u00a0and we were following our hearts back to Galicia for house hunting trip number two. We opted\u00a0to\u00a0fly both ways\u00a0using Santiago de Compostela airport (taking our … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[13,21,10,12,11],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visitgalicia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visitgalicia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visitgalicia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visitgalicia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visitgalicia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=61"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.visitgalicia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":164,"href":"https:\/\/www.visitgalicia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61\/revisions\/164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visitgalicia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=61"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visitgalicia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=61"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visitgalicia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=61"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}