Get Stoned on Love and Peace on the Cies Islands – Galicia

The Cies Islands in Galicia - Beach

By Regina Winkle-Bryan

I ended up in Galicia last month thanks to fellow Scoopette, Nancy Todd. She told me that a Spanish friend from Galicia had told her that the Cies Islands have ‘the most beautiful beaches in the world’. I’ve got to see this, I thought, skeptically.

Two weeks after she shared the Cies Islands tip with me, I was there on with my main-squeeze, A. I don’t mess around! He and I took the ferry from Vigo through the Galician fjords to get to the Cies Islands where we camped a few days. Normally a rainy area, while we were in Galicia there was a heatwave rolling over the region. It was hot, and the bright sun streamed through the ferry windows as we jetted through the Atlantic Ocean.

The Cies Islands in Galicia - Camp

I expected greatness from the Cies Islands. Usually when I have high hopes I am setting myself up for disappointment, but such was not the case on this Atlantic archipelago. We were both completely stunned by the beauty we encountered upon arrival on the islands. The happy beach-goers, the pine and eucalyptus forests, the purest water lapping up on shores the color of sugar. It was all too much. We’d found the island of Eden. We knew we were in a magical place.

The Cies Islands in Galicia - Forests

We set up our tent on a small hill under a cluster of pines overlooking a sea-fed lake. Fish jumped for bugs and gulls dove for fish as we stared out across the water. It was then and there that I felt incredibly stoned. Stoned on nature, because goodness knows we didn’t smuggle pot with us on the plane from Barcelona. My mind went quiet and putty like. Time disappeared. Peace prevailed. What I have been trying forever to get right in my yoga classes was easy to do on the Cies Islands: think of nothing.

The Cies Islands in Galicia - Cliffs

The days went on like this, the two of us enjoying the island in our blissed out state of mind. We hiked to the Faro da Porta, a lighthouse on the southern tip of the island where lots of gulls lay their eggs. For a good hour we sat at the lighthouse watching the gulls and their chicks, talking about plants, laughing, staring at the fog moving across the water.

The Cies Islands in Galicia - Gull Chick

I told A., “Once I get in rhythm with nature, time goes really fast. Whole days pass and I’ve done nothing but look at trees and eat lunch.”

“That’s good,” he replied in a zen way. Neither one of us had any desire to know the time.

The Cies Islands in Galicia - A.

We had brought food from Vigo with us, and ate simple sandwiches on a boulder off the trail. Baguette, bread, cheese, an apple. We didn’t talk much, but just enjoyed the sound of birds and waves and nothingness. At night we’d go to bed early, at maybe ten or eleven and sleep late. We were not in a rush.

The Cies Islands in Galicia - Large Beach

The Cies Islands in Galicia - Water

Our trip to the Cies Islands was by far the best trip he and I have ever been on together. It brought us closer in that we both enjoyed it in a very similar way and both needed the disconnect from Barcelona. For me it was one of those trips that I will always remember as a moment in which I fell in love with A. again, or perhaps just more deeply. It has also become one of my ‘happy places’, the place I think of when I’m down or just want to escape into my own little universe.

The Cies Islands in Galicia - Scoopette Regina Winkle-Bryan

So are the Cies Islands indeed the most beautiful beaches in the world? I think beauty is the eye of the beholder.

The Cies Islands in Galicia - Shells and Sand

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