Hotel Corona De Galicia

“An Unexpected Highlight”

My daughter and I stayed here for one night while walking the Portugese Camino. When we arrived in late afternoon we were met by the cleaner who appeared to be the only person around. She summoned the manager to check us in. He had obviously been woken from his siesta and was less than happy to see… more

My daughter and I stayed here for one night while walking the Portugese Camino. When we arrived in late afternoon we were met by the cleaner who appeared to be the only person around. She summoned the manager to check us in. He had obviously been woken from his siesta and was less than happy to see us. Having got over the language barrier and the question of our online booking we headed to our rooms on the 3rd floor. This sounds like the start of a terrible stay but in fact this turned out to be one of the highlights of our weeks walking. Having settled in our rooms we went downstairs to the bar to have have our traditional end of day beer. The cleaning lady was still the only person around and she proceeded to do bartender and give us our beers at the same time as the regular barman arrives for his shift. He brings snacks to our table and follows it with a really lovely charcuterie plate of food. We are still the only guests. We head back to our rooms to rest having been told that dinner is at 9pm. From our rooms we hear other guests arriving which turns out to be a full bus tour arriving. We head down for dinner to find that the bus tour is in a seperate part of the dining area eating, while we are the only guests in the main dining room. We proceed to have the best meal of our Camino bar none. All conversation is carried on via Google translate. Towards the end of the meal, the barman who is also our waiter asks us to stay for what we think is a cocktail, showing us photos of a drink with flames. We agree to stay. What follows turns out to be the greatest fun we have had in ages. It is the Quiemada Ritual performed by the hotel staff with the full bus tour and ourselves as participants. It was amazing with all the females from the bus and my daughter holding hands and dancing around the flaming cauldron, while everyone takes turns to keep it stirred, in the darkened room with suitable music in the background. We headed to bed tired but in high spirits. The following morning breakfast was unexpectedly included and was the best early breakfast we had and set us up for the day. We can't thank all the hotel staff enough for an absolutely great experience staying with you and we have been singing your praises since we came home. Thank you.

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