If there is a place that explains this relationship between Madrid and the Galician summer, that place is Sanxenxo. Before becoming one of the best-known destinations in northern Spain, it was already a classic for many Madrid families, who began arriving during the seventies and eighties, drawn by a vacation model very different from the Mediterranean one.
The Silgar Beach remains the town’s great outdoor living room. Its promenade concentrates historic hotels, cafés, ice cream parlors, and restaurants where it is common to meet several generations of the same family vacationing together. There are few Spanish beaches where one perceives so clearly that sense of continuity: the children who played here thirty years ago are today the ones pushing their children’s strollers.
A few kilometers away appears A Lanzada, probably the most iconic beach of the Rías Baixas. Its more than two kilometers of open sand, the constant wind and the Atlantic swells have made it one of the great benchmarks of Galician surfing and a beach where there always seems to be room, even on the busiest days. It is also one of the settings that best represents that Galifornia imagery.
Areas stands out as a more secluded beach, one that many consider among the best in the Ría de Pontevedra for a family outing. The water is usually a bit calmer and the atmosphere preserves that balance between residents and regular visitors that makes many return to exactly the same corner year after year.
Portonovo, O Grove, Combarro or the island of A Toxa complete a journey that a good portion of those vacationers knows almost by heart. The curious thing is that they rarely talk about “traveling” to Galicia. They simply say “go up,” as if returning to a second home.
