Verín: By force of water | Paradores territory

Perhaps it does not reach the revelry of a pilgrimage, but the inhabitants of Verín (Ourense) fervently go to the five mineromedicular springs in the municipality. They load with bottles, drink from those waters that – they say those who know – serve to eliminate toxins, help do the digestion, such as that of the Fuente de Cabreirá, which goes out with the deepest gas on Earth. The convinced are called agüistas, whether from the area or visit. An illustrious pilgrim is Óscar Chaves, head of reception of the Verín Parador, 17 years in the work of giving advice to the newcomers. When he was starting to lose hair, he was going to soak his head, he confesses. Luce Calva, but has not lost its delivery. Keep guiding those from outside the springs, an original practice in this land of wine and rock lagares.

Inside the hostel

Portugalicia

The Verín Parador, a recreation of a Galician Pazo, was inaugurated in 1965. 10 minutes on foot is the Castillo de Monterrei, the main monument in the area (from where this photo is taken). The big claims are the twenty of wineries, the bicarbonated and Portugal water springs, which is 30 kilometers.

Nature and recollection

The entrance of the Verín Parador and, in the background, the Castillo de Monterrei, which houses another hostel (in works until the end of 2025). The hotel hosts company customers daily and holidays over the weekend. It has a living room for conferences and meetings. It is an environment conducive to hiking, riding a bike or running.

Sport and then pause

The chimney room welcomes customers at that dead hours of the day. As in the rest of the hostel, stone and wood predominates. In the restaurant, another of the common spaces, regional cuisine is served, such as octopus, empanada, zamburiñas, the Galician broth and sweets such as bica and filloas.

Without crossing the border

Verín and Chaves (Portugal) form a European city, two municipalities from different countries twinned for their proximity and the culture they share. The Parador’s restaurant prepares a dish that combines the Portuguese district of Vila Real and Ourense: baked cod in treixadura sauce (an native grape in both areas) with confined potatoes and spinach.

Heat ready

The seasonal pool, large, occupies a part of the garden with views of Verín. It has a large extent of grass to display towels, sun loungers and umbrellas. In Ourense it is hot and, in this place of recreation of families in summer, it fights with fun.

Anterior

Following

The water is consumed raw, as the nature delivery, at a constant temperature of 18 or 19 degrees depending on where it sprouts. He knows, if one makes the effort, to nuts (Oa Earth, to Terwots) and smells like sulfur (a rotten), but okay, it is rich, the smell is explained by the presence of hydrogen sulfide, a gas that is generated naturally in some springs, and varies from one to each other. The restaurant of the Parador arrives treated, yes, in containers of different brands, as sold to the public. It is going well with the octopus and cod, with the same: the best pink tentacles, wherever they come from, eat inside Galicia, and Portugal is half an hour.

The hostel, a recreation of a Galician pazo, is a retreat, synthesizes David Lorenzo, its director. A retirement that can be wandered. The garden, where a pool remembers a lagoon when it is not summer, flows into a view of Verín, to the Támega Valley and the mountains. The same view that some rooms offer – that day a couple played the cards on their terrace with this wallpaper. In the opposite perspective, Alto, is Monterrei Castle, which is reached in 10 minutes on foot.

In the restaurant of the Parador, Lorenzo, before the cod arrives, points a wine from the Do Monterrei in the letter, the other drink that attracts customers. But the first thing is water. The director has speech about it. He says that it must be dignified, that springs have a lot of history. That must be made known, and here it is being done. There is a circuit to go for a crop of each of those sources. It is called the Water Route and begins in the Tourism Office of Verín, where the visitor receives a kit that includes a folding glass that can be hung from the clip of the pants (as if it were the pilgrim shell) and a passport to accumulate stamps (such as the compostelana). But it is not the Camino de Santiago this. It is more spontaneous, more unknown. It is more raw, and that gives it character. One drinks next to a neighbor, not a Korean. “Water cannot be stored. A two days it gets bad. It is without treating,” says Chaves, also cigarettes, one of the most characteristic characters of the carnival (Carnival) of Verín, the great feast of the town.

Chaves is also the name of the Portuguese city that is twin with Verín. They constitute a European city, that is, two border towns that join to promote common services and policies in culture, tourism, commerce … There is also other renowned in the south, the Eurociudad del Guadiana, which fuses Ayamonte (Huelva) with Vila Real de Santo António and Castro Marim. “Portugal is very close,” Lorenzo insists, like all the directors of Paradores located next to the neighboring country. Chaves (20,000 inhabitants) is half an hour by car from Verín. Parador’s clients always approach. Everything happens in the river, in the Támega, the same one that supplies Verin. A Roman bridge (that of Trajano) that crosses it since the first century, a wooded walk that delimits it, the Roman Termas Museum of Chaves that looks out to the current, which treasures water at 76º C, medicinal spas …

Came from 2,000 years ago

The Roman Empire is always prepared for visits. The Purification Viticulturizer Garcia remembers those times. The first stop with customers is in a rock lagar of the second century (there are 46 in the area). Located in a high, from these stone pylons today without must you see the vineyards and the mountains that slow the cold air and clouds so that the grape is loaded with sugar and give the wine it has given for millennia. The temperatures are extreme in Ourense and the rainfall is low, says Garcia, who tempts the visitor, announces that with his whites and his reds – Triay is called the winery – a tortilla that has cooked this morning will serve. “We have everything for the wine. Sun, minerals in the soil and water,” he says. Water is not seen. It is the one that mana, the one that is stored in this area and maintains the irrigated strains, which came out of the mining sources.

While leading to another lagar, Garcia speaks of the Oimbra pepper, municipality of the Verín region where his winery is located. “Roasted or fried in sandwich,” he recommends. The same fertility of the soils and the same climate look in the greenish yellow of the Godello grape with which the whites are made and in the electric green of the pepper.

Ana, Oscar and Rosy recommend

There is a path, the ecovy, which passes through Verín and reaches Chaves, already in Portugal. You are stuck to the Támega River. It can be done on foot, by bike or horse. On the way you find parks to play the children, snacks to rest. They are 30 kilometers.

Ana Carnero

Chief of Administration 2 years in hostels

The Greenhouse Natural Park has spectacular landscapes. In it, deer, wolves, birds inhabit. There are hiking routes. You have to send the data by WhatsApp to obtain an access authorization. Here in the hostel we help customers to do it.

Oscar Chaves

Reception Head 17 years in Paradores

Who likes hiking, the route of the well, circular and about 14 kilometers, is phenomenal. It is very well indicated, it has up and down, but it has no difficulty. You find a viewpoint with a bank, you arrive at a throat … start in Verín.

Rosy Alvar

Dining room 10 years in Paradores

Without the need to move the car’s car, you can visit the surroundings of the Castillo de Monterrei. The conditioning works of this old city in which it is expected to end at the end of the year. Roberto Blanco, from the Monterrei Tourism Office, remembers that this fortress defended Spain in Portugal. It is found in the dry line. The wet line is the Miño, which separates Tui (Pontevedra) from Valença, to name two important municipalities on both sides of the border. The castle is nothing more than a part of the fortified city (three walls from different eras are observed), which housed the first printing press of Galicia, where the Aurian missal came out in 1494. The Church of Santa María de Gracia, within the enclosure, has a replica.

Seen from afar, a high strength is observed. It is hard to imagine it, but even the eighties of the last century resided in the housing that surrounded it. They can soon do so. These houses are privately owned and some are being rehabilitated together with the work in the castle. One of the buildings in the walled city, the Palacio de los Condes, hosts the Monterrei Castillo Parador, which will open again in early 2026. Lorenzo says, the director, who with the arrival of good weather the clients of one and the other are interchangeable. And the good weather is already. Then you will have to bathe in the pool and all year, drink from the fountains and heal.