Getaways from Santiago de Compostela: day trips and destinations close by.

Almost everything, between one and two hours

Santiago is in the centre of Galicia and almost everything you can see in a day lies between one and two hours away. The AP-9 goes south, to Pontevedra and Vigo, and along the way gives way to the Salnés expressway, which leads to Cambados in about 65 km. To the west, the Negreira road, or the motorway towards Carballo, reaches the Costa da Morte: Muxía an hour and a quarter away, Fisterra a little under an hour and a half. To the south-east, the motorway leads to Ourense and, past Monforte de Lemos, to the Ribeira Sacra.

The train covers two of those directions well. The direct train to Ourense takes about 40 minutes and drops you a kilometre from the first hot springs, with a city bus or the weekend tourist train to Outariz. The Eje Atlántico goes down to Pontevedra, where the scheduled buses to Combarro leave, and to Vigo, port for the boat to the Cíes Islands. For the Costa da Morte there is no public transport that works in a day; without a car, the option is the Finisterre Express group excursion, which leaves Santiago at 9:00.

Cambados and Combarro, the nearest rías

Less than an hour is enough for the nearest Rías Baixas: Cambados and its albariño, 51 minutes away, and the granaries of Combarro with the Poio monastery, 54.

Most Sundays are between an hour and an hour and a half: Vigo harbour for the Cíes, 68 minutes; Ourense and its hot springs, 73; Muxía and Camariñas, also 73, and O Ézaro and Fisterra, 82. Any of them can be done with a return in time to have dinner at home.

Between an hour and a half and two hours you reach Monforte de Lemos, 98 minutes away, which is the gateway to the Ribeira Sacra; the Sunday of boat and wineries on the Sil adds a little more, 126 minutes, because of the winding canyon roads. Here the trip is already better with a night: the Ribeira Sacra in two nights, with two boats through the canyon, or the Costa da Morte sleeping in Fisterra.

With a weekend, from two and a half hours onwards, there is the Portuguese Gerês, 155 minutes away; Las Médulas, 157, and Porto, 160.

The Costa da Morte is for the afternoon

From May to September, the Costa da Morte is for the afternoon: the Sunday at O Ézaro and Fisterra ends with the sun setting late over the Atlantic. In winter the waterfall carries more water, but the wind shortens the walk along the cape. From mid-May to mid-September you can do the day on the Cíes, with authorisation and boat requested in advance.

In October and November, the terraced vineyards of the Sil turn ochre and red: the autumn Sunday in the canyon combines the catamaran with the Outariz hot springs at dusk. From October to June, in cold or rainy weather, Ourense's hot water is the safe plan, in the thermal Sunday or the bathing weekend; note that from 1 July to 15 September the restaurant in the plan is not open on Sundays. For a grey day Monforte de Lemos, with its railway museum and El Greco, also works. In September the Romería de la Barca fills Muxía, and in August the Albariño Festival, Cambados.

The Vilán lighthouse and the Muxía sanctuary

• Without a car, in a day: Combarro and Pontevedra. Train to Pontevedra and a bus along the Poio coast to see the granaries above the ría, the Pontevedra Museum in the morning and the Poio monastery in the afternoon.
• Towards the end of the world: Muxía, Camariñas and the Vilán lighthouse. An hour and a quarter to the sanctuary of the Virxe da Barca, fish at the harbour and the Vilán lighthouse in the afternoon.
• With wine: an albariño Sunday in Cambados. 51 minutes away, a winery with the Arousa ría in front of you and a stroll round the town's pazos; whoever is not tasting should drive.