Galego | English

Non fiction

Orientarse pola Ribeira Sacra. Viaxe ao interior

By Gonzalo Xosé Francisco da Rocha

About this book

This guide follows the spirit of Marco Polo, the spirit of the travellers of the Enlightenment; therefore, travelling is conceived as a life experience.

In this line, in the first half of the book we have information on the geography, history, philosophy and art of these wonderful but still remote areas of Galicia. The place was declared a “European Cultural Itinerary” by the Council of Europe, which is an important step in being listed as a “Wold Heritage Site” by UNESCO. In the second half of the book, we have 68 short routes of one to two hours that allow us to come closer to the most intimate areas in the Ribeira Sacra.

The traveller will be keen to see that the guide includes plenty of data of all sorts, easy to interpret and test while travelling. This work was made by a trekker, a humanist, which means that his feet were all the time on the ground.

Book fragment

In Santo Estevo, on the shores of the Miño, we can spend the afternoon walking in the shade of oak trees, surrounding the temple with its buttress on the apse while the sun paints in gold the rose window that colours the façade. We remain with the hope of coming back.

The road winds through open landscapes until we reach the magnificence of the dam of Belesar that closes, as a symbol, the Ribeira Sacra to the North. That wall withstands the water of the Miño, sinking everything until the village of Portomarín. We cross the street until we reach an area with houses and a mill, by a stream, and houses of huge stones that are kept inside like a megalithic postcard.

...The road does not stop here, and it is imagining that place that we start climbing the other slope of the valley, in the land of Chantada, hidden from the sun in the summer and still more in the winter. Behind the wooden house that looks like a shelter, the path stays hidden until it reaches the old monastery of Santa María de Pesqueiras. There is little reference to its founding in a place where there is plenty of references to fishing. The old Visigoth factory was renewed in 1120...