Recently, we’ve found a new way to while away our mornings.
It started as a joke over coffee—“I wonder what castles cost in Spain?”—and has since turned into a full-blown obsession with scrolling through listings for medieval fortresses we have no business even looking at.
Mornings: Coffee, Wordle, and Questionable Life Choices
We’ve settled into a routine here.
Step one: Coffee. Preferably outside, in the sun, while Bertie makes himself very busy sniffing absolutely nothing.
Step two: Wordle. Once a friendly competition, now a painful reminder that Patricia is luckier than me. She got SLATE in one try last week. One try. I haven’t recovered.
Step three: Connections. Aka, the game where we prove, daily, that we are not as smart as we think.
Yesterday, I confidently grouped “king, queen, bishop, and knight” under Chess Pieces.
Wrong. Apparently, they were all British pub names.
Patricia, meanwhile, was 100% certain that “flamingo, mango, tango, and bingo” belonged under Dances.
Nope. They just all end in “O.”
Even Bertie looked a bit disappointed with us.
Step four: Dive down the castle-hunting wormhole.
It only took one Google search and we were up to our necks in listings for real life fortresses.
If you’re even remotely curious (and enjoy dreaming), do yourself a favour and check out castles for sale in Spain.
It is wild.
Patricia, being the artistic one, immediately started imagining herself restoring centuries-old frescoes, balancing on scaffolding, bringing long-forgotten murals back to life.
I, meanwhile, was doing quick mental calculations on what it would cost to heat a 40-room fortress.
(Short answer: more than my will to live.)
Bertie was only interested in whether the moats were still in working order.
Then we found one that actually made us pause.
A proper medieval fortress, complete with battlements, a watchtower, and a listing that casually promised: “Perfect for hosting lavish banquets and medieval reenactments.”
Patricia wheeze-laughed for a full minute.
“James,” she said, wiping away tears, “I can already picture you, standing on the parapets, yelling ‘RELEASE THE DRAWBRIDGE!’ at Bertie.”
Honestly? She’s not wrong.
A Coastal Drive to Snap Us Back to Reality
Since we can’t actually buy a castle, we did the next best thing—got in the car and drove somewhere pretty.
The Rías Altas are Galicia’s answer to the rugged coastlines of Scotland or Ireland. Big, dramatic cliffs, hidden beaches, sleepy fishing villages that feel stuck in time.
We stopped in Viveiro, where Patricia sat herself down to sketch the colorful boats, and I found myself torn between grilled sardines and octopus.
(For the record, I went with both.)
Later in the week, we headed inland to the Ribeira Sacra, where the Sil River cuts through deep, dramatic gorges.
I was in my element, nerding out over geography, while Patricia was absorbed in the intricate stonework of the Monastery of Santo Estevo.
Bertie? He was off chasing absolutely nothing through a medieval courtyard.
Let’s be real—this ridiculous fantasy isn’t going anywhere but for a few mornings we found it highly entertaining.
And if we do somehow end up buying one? You’d better believe I’m getting a drawbridge.
