Heritage towns in Galicia

Once the provincial capital of Galicia and still bearing its Gothic churches, medieval walls, and the legacy of powerful local lords, Betanzos in A Coruña is one of the best-preserved historic towns in the region.

A compact Atlantic peninsula town, declared a historic-artistic ensemble, where medieval pilgrims once passed through on their way from Santiago de Compostela to the coast at Finisterre, and where a Spanish warship once limped in carrying four million silver pesos after fighting off two British squadrons alone.

Once the commercial port that served Santiago de Compostela, Noia sits where three rivers meet the ría, its medieval walls, Franciscan cloister, and two protected churches marking centuries of pilgrims, pirates, and Atlantic trade.

A fortified Atlantic fishing town on the Galician ría, its Gothic collegiate church, medieval walls, and centuries of sardine trade shaped by kings, pirates, and Napoleon's troops.

The endpoint of the world's most-walked pilgrimage, Santiago de Compostela has drawn travellers to its great cathedral in Galicia for over a thousand years, and still does, by the tens of thousands every year.

A medieval port town on the Ría de Ares in A Coruña, where a 14th-century castle, a Romanesque monastery church, and a great stone bridge built by the powerful Andrade lords still define the landscape.

A hilltop monastery turned parador, a 30-metre keep, a college that earned the name "the Galician Escorial," and a river the Celts once prized for tempering sword steel, Monforte de Lemos is the historic capital of the Ribeira Sacra in Lugo province.

A cathedral city in Lugo, Galicia, whose UNESCO-listed medieval centre and ancient bishop's see make it one of the landmark stops on the Camino del Norte.

The only city in the world whose complete Roman walls still stand, Lugo holds three UNESCO World Heritage sites within its ancient perimeter, the walls themselves, its Romanesque cathedral, and the Primitive Way of Saint James.

A town rebuilt stone by stone above a reservoir on the Río Miño in Lugo, Galicia, where a transplanted Romanesque church and the ghost of a submerged village together mark one of the Camino de Santiago's most unusual waypoints.

A pre-Roman mountain village in Lugo's Sierra de Ancares, its tight cluster of ancient pallozas and stone storehouses preserved so intact it earned protected status as early as 1931.

A Roman city built on gold and hot springs, its ancient bridge still spanning the Miño after two thousand years, and one of Galicia's most significant stops on the Camino de Santiago.

A hilltop town in Ourense whose medieval castle watched over Jewish settlers, Irmandiña revolts, and a French army's revenge fire, and whose two ancient monasteries still stand in the surrounding valleys.

A medieval royal town in Ourense, Galicia, where castle ruins, a kilometre of ancient walls, and a Romanesque church older than nine centuries rise above the river Arnoia.

Once the capital of the Kingdom of Galicia, Ribadavia sits where medieval castle walls, a Jewish quarter declared a national monument, and the wine country of the Ribeiro converge in Ourense province.

A small Galician town in Ourense whose very name reflects its concentration of manor houses, set among rivers, medieval bridges, and a 13th-century church on the edge of Camino country.

A Galician coastal town with deep roots, Phoenician traders, Arab raids, medieval lords, and a ruined church that became one of Pontevedra's most striking monuments, Cambados wears its long history openly in stone.

A cathedral built like a fortress rises above the River Miño on the Portuguese border in Pontevedra, where the Camino de Santiago crosses into Spain over a century-old international bridge.

The provincial capital of Pontevedra, Galicia, carries centuries of medieval trade and pilgrimage in its granite old town, where a baroque sanctuary built on a scallop-shell plan marks the Portuguese Camino de Santiago.

A major Atlantic port city in Pontevedra, Galicia, whose ground holds the remains of twenty-six Iron Age hill forts, Roman fish-salting factories, and medieval Romanesque churches, all compressed beneath one of Spain's busiest working harbours.

A fortified Atlantic town in Pontevedra where a medieval castle-turned-parador guards the bay, a 15-metre stone Virgin watches from the hillside, and two local sailors once completed the first circumnavigation of the Earth.

A fishing village on the Galician coast, just 7 km from Pontevedra, whose old quarter, dense with stone granaries, wayside crosses, and a parish church, is protected as both a Historic Site and a Cultural Interest Site.