Castro Caldelas

People have lived in this part of Galicia since the Neolithic period. Two megalithic necropolises survive at Burgo and the Sierra de Mazaira, and a Bronze Age rock with petroglyph carvings can be found at Veiga de Sas. Iron Age castro culture also left its mark, with remains at Castro de Paradela and other nearby sites.

The Romans came through looking for gold, and found it, and their Via Nova road from Braga to Astorga passed through here, with the settlement of Mansio Praesidium at Burgo serving as a rest stop for travellers. After the Suebi and then the Visigoths took control of Galicia, Christianity arrived in the area. The town's current name first appears in medieval records.

Two monasteries were built here during the Middle Ages. San Juan de Camba is documented from 963, though sarcophagi found among its ruins suggest even earlier origins. San Paio de Abeleda was probably founded around the same era but does not appear in written records until 1127.

The castle of Castro Caldelas is the town's defining monument. The Gutier Menéndez family acquired the lands through royal grants in the medieval period, and the town itself gained the status of royal borough under charters issued by Fernando II in 1172 and Alfonso IX in 1228. Ownership later passed to don Pedro Fernández de Castro by grant of Alfonso XI, and then to the Counts of Lemos.

The castle's history is eventful. It was partly demolished during the Irmandiña revolts, popular uprisings in which the warrior Pero Pardo de Cela is said by local tradition to have taken part, and then rebuilt by Rodrigo Enríquez Osorio, Count of Lemos, who funded the work through heavy taxation of the townspeople. The resulting legal dispute between the council and the count was finally settled in 1534 by King Carlos I, who ruled in favour of the town.

A significant Jewish community also lived within the castle's orbit during this period. In the early modern era the fortress was remodelled into a Renaissance palace. Its last military episode came during the Peninsular War, when the townspeople attacked the French General Marchand's 15th regiment; in reprisal Marchand ordered the town and castle burned, destroying much of the comarca's historical archive in the process.

The castle was inhabited until the 20th century by Sol Stuart, a relative of the Dukes of Alba, whose family had held the lordship of Lemos since 1794. Beyond the castle, the town and its surrounding parishes contain nearly twenty churches representing a wide range of architectural styles.

Castro Caldelas crowns a hill above the valley of the river Edo, in the heart of the Ribeira Sacra in Ourense. From the Plaza del Prado, steep cobbled lanes climb between white galleries and houses with carved coats of arms to the fortress at the top.

The fourteenth-century castle has three square towers on its outer wall, a parade ground with a cistern, and a battlemented inner wall carrying a walkway to the clock tower. It was partly pulled down during the Irmandiño revolts, rebuilt by the Count of Lemos, and burned on the orders of the French general Marchand in the Peninsular War after the townspeople attacked his troops. The sanctuary of Nuestra Señora de los Remedios has an elliptical dome and twin towers, and from the Pena de Matacás viewpoint you look over the last stretch of the Sil before it joins the Miño.

Castro Caldelas joined Los Pueblos Más Bonitos de España in 2018. The label is awarded by a private association, not the state: a village applies and is audited against around 40 criteria, from how its historic buildings are conserved to the upkeep of its streets, and members are reviewed and can lose it. Castro Caldelas is one of 5 members in Galicia, out of 126 in Spain. See all heritage towns in Galicia.