2005

People will go to Ireland knowing it's going to rain. But they won't come to Spain for rain."

Chato was expounding at his post behind the bar of El Siglo, an amiable establishment tucked away in a modest square in the Galician port city of A Coruña. He was a small man with glasses, a graying goatee and a thick head of black hair who moved from Spanish to English to his native Gallego with admirable ease.

Tourists, I thought: Can't live with them, can't live without them. But in Spain there is a woeful imbalance: The sunny south gets inundated while the cloudy north goes almost forgotten (at least by foreigners).

It wasn't that Chato didn't appreciate the advantages of inattention. He liked that his beloved coast was not dentured with condos. (Though he claimed that neighboring Asturias did a better job of protecting its patrimony.) He could walk without fear at any hour -- and he did, often with the night's money from the till.

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It was an attractive enough city, though a number of lovely old buildings, most notably around the Praza Lugo, had been torn down for modern nonentities. One interesting new square, not far from El Siglo, had line drawings of great comedians etched into the pavement: Cervantes, Swift, Rabelais, O. Henry, Twain, George Grosz, Daumier, the Marx Brothers, Mae West and -- demonstrating what seemed a misguidedly broad view of humor -- Dostoevsky.

The fishing industry had taken a hit in recent years, but there were not many poor people. It was, he said, a very tolerant city. And, of course, it was lapped by the sea.

"To have that immensity," he said, "right here." He pointed to the window looking out to the street that led down to the beach. "When I lived in London it would drive me crazy. Sometimes you could smell the sea, but you couldn't see it. I'd say to my friend, 'Come on, I have to go.' And we'd get in the car and drive to Brighton or someplace."

By midnight, El Siglo was packed. I congratulated Chato on running such a popular place, and then walked down the long street to my hotel. People spilled out of every bar I passed.

Spidey in Spain

Galicia, like Ireland, is a Celtic land -- drizzle, bagpipes, a history of poverty and emigration. Large numbers of Galicians landed in Cuba, among them the Castro family, while others went off to South America.

A Coruña is its largest city, and a rival of Santiago de Compostela. Sailors versus pilgrims; fishermen versus professors. Half of its heart looks to the sea, over a crescent beach; the other half -- rimmed by graceful rows of windowed balconies (the famous Galician galerias) -- turns to the harbor.

It is here that the 16th-century repelling of Sir Francis Drake's "counter armada" is re-enacted every summer. Families climb the hill overlooking the marina, watching the boats decorated as galleons and shuddering slightly at each cannon blast. Observing the event in August, I wondered if people the world over still find entertainment in the sight of Englishmen going down.

After the fireworks, the crowds flowed into the narrow streets looking for food. I followed them into the old town, where around 11 p.m. I found a restaurant with an empty table for two. (No small feat in Spain, where family still dominates, and the few small tables are usually occupied by those poor couples who have no one to eat with.)

I ordered a salad and langoustines. The salad arrived: potatoes and peas stuck together with mayonnaise. The peas were the only greenery in the place.

The large-waisted table beside me was making quick work of two mountains of fries topped with grilled chorizo. When they were dispatched, two huge plates of fried calamari appeared.

My crustaceans arrived swimming in garlic. Inspired by the battle, I tore off their heads and ripped off their armor and then popped their succulent, still warm bodies into my mouth.

I couldn't see the sea, but its smell was now all over my hands.

Before retiring, I strolled past the blow-up figure of Spider-Man climbing the clock tower and entered the park along the marina. Teenagers occupied every bench; some sat on the grass or at the edge of the walkways, bottles of wine, gin, vodka and Coke always within reach.

Even the red wine is mixed with Coke, to make a drink called calimocho. These gatherings are known as botellons, and are favored by the young who don't have money for bars.

Here, as well, no one sat alone.

Sense of community

"This is a great restaurant," Mateo said.

Like me, he had stepped up to read Artabria's glassed-in menu on Fernando Macias Street.

"It's Galician food, with some foreign influences. See, the menu is written in Gallego and Spanish. I'm coming here tomorrow with some friends."

"A celebration?" I asked.

"Yes, because Friday I'm leaving."

"Where to?"

"Syracuse, New York. To do graduate work in philosophy."

Mateo had been studying economics in Madrid.

"I thought economics was going to be the science of the 21st century," he said. "But now I think it's going to be biology."

We walked toward the center of town.

"The mayor is very strong," he said. "Very leftist. He loves comics -- that's why there is the comics exposition in town.

"Galicia," he said, "is the best place in Spain. Madrid doesn't have the sense of community that you find here."

We came to a closed-up square. "They used to have the fish market here -- they moved it a few blocks away. You get the best fish, the best seafood."

He wondered about Syracuse.

I said I'd never been there, but I doubted he'd find a great fish market. No lively cafes, either. (How Europeans must pine when they first come to the States.) "There are bars," I said.

"Will I be able to go to a bar and watch the news?" he asked. "I'm not going to have a TV."

"I'm not sure they'll be showing the news," I said delicately. "But sports, definitely."

We arrived at the entrance to his apartment, halfway between the beach and the harbor. "This is the nerve center of A Coruña," he said proudly.

Shortly, his mother and sister appeared on the street. Mateo introduced me as a travel writer from Florida.

"And what about the hurricanes?" his sister asked in beautiful English. "Is your family all right?"

Cider and ritual

The bus headed east under sunny skies.

Out the left-side windows the sea made occasional cameo appearances. Green fields, white houses and orange roof tiles kept the story line moving.

Somewhere, we crossed the border into Asturias.

The taxi dropped me at the edge of a leafy square. After all these years, I still get excited when dropped at the edge of a leafy square.

This one sloped, with cafe tables at the top and people sitting on benches that circled the small tree trunks, which bunched together on the right side. I walked into the cafe and up the stairs; a pretty barmaid ran up after me and checked me in.

I love rooms above cafes, all that conviviality underfoot.

In fact, La Casona de Jovellanos was my idea of the perfect hotel: small, homey, named after a great Enlightenment figure and smack in the heart of the action.

It had modern bathrooms and old-fashioned shutters, in keeping with its prominent place in the old town. I walked down a short, narrow street that opened up into a miniature Plaza Mayor.

Standing to the side, I looked one way and saw the harbor; I looked the other way and saw the sea.

Gijon seemed a simpler version of A Coruña. I wandered along the seaside promenade -- the air blowing a little cool, future bathers sunning in the sand -- and then cut back through the business district, where I stepped into a sidreria.

The bartender, an athletic-looking blonde, uncorked a bottle and raised it high above her head. She took a glass and held it low, around her knee.

Then she poured, spilling the first drops and a few thereafter. When the glass was about one-eighth full, she placed it on the bar, the bottle next to it.

I took a sip: My first mistake.

The longer the cider sits, I later learned, the more it becomes like vinegar. You should drink it at once, as the harpy next to me did, leaving a little to toss on the sawdusty floor. (You can often tell an Asturian by the smell of his shoes.)

The very air that supposedly improves the liquid as it makes its journey from bottle to glass -- the scenic ciderfall -- impairs it as it sits in the glass.

Who discovered this, made an actual science out of imbibing, I hadn't a clue. But the whole thing reeked of showmanship, as if an elaborate ritual were needed to take customers' minds off the less-than-ambrosial taste.

And this from a man who usually loves both cider and ritual.

The place was crowded, so it took a while for the barmaid to return and pour me another glass. Normally I have a hard time catching a bartender's eye to order; now I had to do it every time I wanted a taste.

I was tempted to pour it myself, at a lower altitude, as if it were just a bottle of Bud, but feared getting labeled a culturally insensitive American. What I was was a thirsty American.

It was after 8 when I staggered out. (There are no such things as mini bottles.)

I walked down to a pedestrian street and sat on a bench outside a cafe that was bright with mirrors and marble-topped tables. Families strolled before dinner: couples with children, grandmotherly troikas, daughters with mothers clinging to their arms.

Everyone was nicely dressed; there was not a baseball cap in sight.

Later, in a little store, I ordered a cider ice cream and was disappointed when the counter girl didn't raise her scooper high and drop its contents into a cone held down at her knee.

Party of one

The receptionist at the Hotel Asturias had long, wavy, dirty blond hair.

"I'm a typical Asturian," she said.

"Really?" I asked. "Blond?"

"Yes, we are Celtic."

"But the Galicians are too. I didn't see a lot of blondes there."

"We're more Celtic than they are," she said. "You know, when the Muslims were in Spain, Asturias was the only part not under their control. We are," she said with smile that suggested self-irony, "more pure."

Lunch was taken in the crowded upstairs room of yet another restaurant unaccustomed to loners. I read the paper while waiting for someone to acknowledge my presence. (It helped shield me from the stares of outraged diners.)

When a waiter eventually appeared, I ordered fabada, the regional specialty, a stew of white beans, bacon, chorizo and blood sausage. It arrived in an earthenware crock the size of a small sink.

This is the other thing about eating alone in Spain: you go from not existing to being served as a group. Of course, in a place where no one eats alone, why would there ever be servings for one?

Lola stood by the stone wall overlooking the harbor, six empty cider bottles neatly lined up at her feet.

"Hola, Lola," I said. I have a thing for English bulldogs.

"She's 3," her master informed me. Roberto and his pals, another young man and two young women, were enjoying a botellon with a bulldog. He uncorked a new bottle; the lengthy pour seemed somehow less ridiculous when performed among friends.

"Look," he said, handing me his glass. "In other parts of Spain you have a bottle of wine, everybody has glasses. Here we drink from one glass. This is how we are."

We stood there by the stone wall, telling stories, petting Lola, drinking cider as if at Communion.

In the morning I opened my shutters to another sunny day.