Galicia in the UK Guardian newspaper

Jeff Crawley said:

While still dodging doing my garden (the hayfever is bad this year) I was pleasantly surprised to see an article in my weekend paper featuring Galicia.

The paper version (the online one has been shortened) starts with:

Have we hit peak Camino de Santiago? Almost. according to a copy of the El Correo Gallego newspaper I found lying in a bar in the harbour town of Muxia in northwest Spain: a record 301,036 walkers completed the pilgrim trail last year - 98.6% capacity, said a professor (he doesn't say professor of what).

The article then goes on to extol the beauty and cuisine of Galicia - who knew? Why have we not been told there is a life off the Camino?

Much funnier is the online version which can be found here.

There are some horrifying comments BTL from somebody called *toadyblegh who warns that Galicia is a dangerous place to visit overrun by drug dealers and people trying to kill cyclists:

"Visitors should be advised that locals in Galicia can be quite aggressive towards outsiders. As an example https://elpais.com/elpais/2018/06/20/inenglish/1529489789_531176.html

It’s not really a safe place to take your family. There’s also a lot of drug violence and criminality because the region is a major transshipment point for cocaine."

and

"Spain may be safe(ish) but Galicia is mental. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galician_mafia
https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/bna9dw/spain-is-a-paradise-for-latin-american-drug-cartels
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wo...usa-The-entry-point-of-cocaine-to-Europe.html

You may as well take your children to Bolivia or Mexico. It’s the heart of one of the most dangerous drug mafias in the world. It’s crazy and irresponsible to encourage people to take their children there knowing that they could be murdered at any moment."

The Telegraph article is 10 years old and the Telegraph is very Conservative. It appears *toadyblegh is currently in Spain but has lost his mind/meds. You are advised to steer clear if you see a Telegraph toting Englishman

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Glenshiro said:

I first visited Santiago de Compostella in 1989. I witnessed women doing the laundry in a communal trough in the middle of the street in a small village only a few miles outside the city. SdC itself was a provincial backwater with a magnificent, if slightly neglected, cathedral, and pilgrims were very few and far between. It was obviously poor compared with, say Barcelona or Valencia.

I returned a few years ago, and I agree with Kanga that it has changed immensely. Although some of this is undoubtedly drug money, a major change has been the attitude of the Spanish government. In Franco's day, the Galician language, like other regional languages, was outlawed (strange, as Franco was a Gallego himself) and investment in the provinces (not just Galicia) was almost non-existent. Galicia did not benefit from the tourist boom enjoyed by the Mediterranean Costas, but SdC is now a major university city and the region as a whole does well out of fishing, agriculture and tourism as well as some industry. (There is a Citroen plant at Vigo.) Spain's accession to the European Union, with its emphasis on regional and marginal assistance, in 1986 undoubtedly helped to boost the local economy. And, of course, the Camino is now a considerable source of income.

It is certainly as safe as any where in Spain, and probably safer than Barcelona or Madrid.

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