Travel with Kevin and Ruth: Day trip to Ribadavia, and the Melon Waterfalls

Thursday, May 22, 2025

Day trip to Ribadavia, and the Melon Waterfalls

There are so many choices of things to do and places to see, it took us a while to decide!

We chose to go to the town of Ribadavia, about a 45 minute drive. Then, Ruth found an 8 km (5 mile) hike with some waterfalls a few kms past Ribadavia, so we went there afterwards.

Ribadavia is known as a medieval town, and of course every medieval town has to have a castle...

The castle at Ribadavia.

We went to the tourist office and found that they want €3.50 ($5.50 CAD, $4 USD) entrance fee to the castle, which is reasonable enough. But reading reviews told us that there really wasn't much to see, and that it really looks better from the outside than the inside. So we gave it a pass.

We're quite happy just wandering around.

Lots of big old stone buildings.

The Rio Miño in Ribadavia.

It's a pretty town.

The people who live in apartments have gardens in the back.

After all, you need somewhere to grow the grapes for your homemade wine!

There is a nice walking/cycling path by the river.

Then we drove about 10 kms west to the parking lot of the Melon Falls. This is a series of waterfalls along the Rio Cerves, some of which have formed into pools. Based on the size of the parking lot, it must be a busy spot on a hot summer day for people to go swimming. But on a Wednesday in the spring, it wasn't busy and there were only four or five other cars.

There are probably a dozen different waterfalls.

Some of the swimming holes are really pretty.

I saw this big black slug. He was about the size of my index finger, but thicker.

One of the larger waterfalls.

There were several pools in this section.

A nice pool to hop into!

Kevin.

Ruth spotted this colorful Ocellated lizard.

But he didn't want to come out from the grass for a photo.

We carried on past what was obviously the more popular section.

Scenery along the way.

There was a steep uphill section towards the highest point.

We would eventually come down the other side to a viewing platform.

There was actually another waterfall higher than this one that we couldn't see.

Looking down from the viewing platform.

Looping back around to head lower, we could see the higher waterfall that we couldn't see earlier.

The hamlet of As Mestas.

We had a fun afternoon, and got some exercise in the process! It took about an hour to drive back home, and then we sat out and relaxed on our patio...