About Galiciatips

Galicia is so beautiful, but unknown to many. On this site I would like to introduce Galicia: it’s finest destinations, must-sees, culture and many more!

Rob (Galiciatips)

A website about Galicia, written by a Dutchmen. My name is Rob and many years ago I had the privilege of getting to know Galicia. It was an unknown area to me at that time and I got to love it. Later I discovered that Galicia wasn’t just unknown to me, but that the area in general could use some more knowledge. Therefore I decided to create this website!

How I got in Galicia

Chapter 1: Santiago de Compostela

At the end of the 90’s I was studying for my bachelor at a Dutch University. It was always my dream to spend some time abroad and to get to know other cultures.
It wasn’t as common as it is today to study abroad for a semester. There weren’t many options. Luckily for me there was one professor at my university who could help me. He had some contacts on a foreign university. This university was in Spain, how did that sound for me? Well, that sounded good off course. My dream was to study abroad for a while, I didn’t had a preference for any country and this was my chance!

The University that could place me resulted to be the University of Santiago de Compostela. Of course I knew that city by name, or at least I had ever heard of it. But where exactly Santiago de Compostela is located in Spain? I couldn’t point it at the map.
I decided to live the adventure and went to Santiago. It was a fantastic semester! The city of Santiago, it’s history, it’s nightlife, but also the surroundings. I discovered the beautiful area and it’s culture. The city I got to know was very different of the views most pelgrims have. I saw the student life – about 30% of Santiagos inhabitants are students – and it’s nightlife. I also saw the ‘normal life’, as I was really living in Santiago de Compostela.

Chapter 2: discovering Galicia

To be honoust, on my student exchange I was mainly living in Santiago de Compostela. I got to know that the area was called Galicia, that the people have their own language and off course I saw things of the beautiful Galician country. But getting to know Galicia? Not really, I just started. This all changed some years later.

After returning to my home country and finishing my studies I still had the dream of living abroad. So I decided to work abroad and ended up in Barcelona. I know, that is Catalunya and definitely not Galicia. Still I got to know Galicia very well in that time. How that happened? My room mate was Gallego!

Living together with somebody from Galicia in Barcelona learned me a lot about Galicia. His pride, his cooking and his histories teached me a lot about Galicia. In summer we made a trip to his hometown. This time I was not in Galicia as an Erasmus exchange student, but got fully included in the local living. One of my best summer holidays ever.

After the summer holidays in Galicia I ended my working period in Spain and went back to my homecountry the Netherlands. But my connection to Galicia did not end their. In the Netherlands I went back to study and for my master thesis I went to my former profesor at the University of Santiago de Compostela. I could do my research in his classes and spent yet another time in Galicia.
In the end I fell in love in the Netherlands and decided to spend our lives in our homecountry. But I think you can already guess where we spend our first holiday together. Yes, in Galicia!

Why I started Galiciatips

As you can read, Galicia is special to me. Although I’m living in the Netherlands nowadays, I still think of Galicia often. I still like to read the news about the area and often tell people about Galicia. And I discouvered: the area is not so well-knows, but it deserves to be. And that’s the reason I started this website!

On Galiciatips I would like to introduce Galicia to you. It’s not just abouth sharing my experiences, but sharing information to let you know more about the area. Galicia is so beautiful, but unknown to many. On this site I would like to introduce Galicia: it’s finest destinations, must-sees, culture and many more!

I hope you enjoy visiting this website and you may become as enthousiastic as I am about Galicia!

kind regards,
Rob