Os Muíños do Picón e do Folón

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Mat moley · Water

The quartz teeth jut out of the granite stones that we walk across, marking the pathway up or down the valley of the watermills of Picón.

Stunning, quaint and beautifully preserved, the individual mills with their simple weathered but flawless wooden doors are set in a landscape lush with yellow gorse and deep lilac flowers that permeate through the lush dark green of the pine trees sweeping the valley.

Down below we can see the vineyards of albariño wine. This is one of two places in Galicia that albariño wine is produced. It is obvious to see why. The river mouth of the Miño invites the seafog to sweep in land. The juxtaposition of the cold, raw Atlantic on a day of little wind in Springtime meets the scorching land. A temperature contrast of 15 degrees creates the perfect conditions for the fog to settle and creep inland. Yet, the fog remains away from the lower stretches of the valley which we look down on. Protected by a five hundred steep valley wall of greens, lilacs and yellow the grey immensity of the cloud cannot reach the south facing vineyards and so the grapes grow on the vines. The sharp contrast between the cold Atlantic and the heat of the Iberian peninsula helps the grape mature and develop the sharp acidity so characteristic of the albariño wine here: O Rosal.

And now we continue down the hillside. Surrounded by a triple viewpoint. Up the valley we see the watermills, higgledy-piggledy stacked almost one on top of each other. Behind at 120 degrees is a waterfall that cascades down over the grey granite that glints in the sunshine. Finally below, at the third turn; the valley where we can spot vineyards basking in the mid Spring sunshine. We will be joining those vineyards soon.

And just then a lizard is spotted. Its back is a perfect game of tetrix with random quadrilateral like patterns of grey and random lime green straight lines that aid its camouflage into the surrounding long grass: the Iberian emerald lizard. What's more, individual light blue specks on its back add a certain individuality and character to its disposition. It freezes solid sensing our presence in an attempt to blend into the grass. The photograph is taken and we carry on. A rustle in the undergrowth is heard and it vanishes into the wilderness.

The Emerald Green Lizard is endemic to the North-Western Iberian Peninsula

A channel of water split into two artificially allows gushes of water to spill down the two valleys up from where we stand. As we make our way down the valley it follows us, trickling at times and at others rushing through the mills, allowing the mind to wander back to a simpler time when the water turned the wheels to grind and horses trod up and down the stone pathway to deliver the corn and then take it down into the pasture for turning into bread.

Sometimes it is the time out in nature that allows us to breathe, become and balance once more.

Muiños de picon e folon

Sabado, 30 de abril 2022