Logbook · 4 places

What to see and do in San Felices de los Gallegos

What to see and do in San Felices de los Gallegos (Vitigudino, Salamanca): 4 places across monuments, nature, activities and curiosities, with a photo and a Google Maps location.

1 Villages · 1 Monuments · 1 Activities · 1 Historical milestones

Towns near San Felices de los Gallegos

What to see in Ahigal de los Aceiteros 4.3 km · 3 places
What to see in Puerto Seguro 5.1 km · 1 place
What to see in La Redonda 7.4 km · 1 place
What to see in La Bouza 7.5 km · 1 place
What to see in Olmedo de Camaces 7.9 km · 1 place
What to see in Bañobárez 8.1 km · 1 place
What to see in Lumbrales 9.5 km · 4 places
What to see in Sobradillo 11 km · 1 place

Spain › Castile and León › Salamanca › Vitigudino › San Felices de los Gallegos

What to see and do in San Felices de los Gallegos

San Felices de los Gallegos
Village
San Felices de los Gallegos is a town in the province of Salamanca, in Castile and León, part of the comarca of Vitigudino and the sub-comarca of El Abadengo, in the northwest of the province and within the Arribes del Duero Nature Park. Before Romanisation it was occupied by the Vettones, who left their mark in the castros of Castelmau and Castillo de Xuan. The settlement was founded around 688-690 by colonists who came from Gallaecia under Bishop Félix of Porto, from whom it takes its name, and was later resettled by Alfonso VI and Ferdinand II of León. A town of around 377 inhabitants declared a historic-artistic site, it borders Portugal, to which it briefly belonged after the 1297 Treaty of Alcañices, and it preserves its walled precinct and its castle.
Castle and walls of San Felices de los Gallegos
Monument
Of the medieval fortress that King Dinis of Portugal built in the 13th century, together with the town walls, and which took its final form in the 15th century, a large part of the crenellated walls survives, along with the keep, the result of the 1476 rebuilding of the old Torre de Don Dionís. Set in a frontier enclave disputed between Castile and Portugal, in 1374 it took in Beatriz de Portugal and her daughter Leonor with their whole court, and it remained in military use during the war in which Portugal rose against Philip IV and during the War of the Spanish Succession. The keep, restored in the late 1990s, today houses a centre interpreting the town's history, declared a Conjunto histórico-artístico (a heritage protection category, precursor to today's Bien de Interés Cultural) together with the castle since 1965.
Festival of el Noveno
Activity
On the second weekend of May, without fail since 1864, San Felices de los Gallegos celebrates the 1852 court victory that freed the town and the nearby Puerto Seguro and Ahigal de los Aceiteros from paying the Duke of Alba the Noveno, a tribute of a ninth part of the harvest imposed after the municipality was ceded to the duke amid the disputes over the crown of Castile between Isabella the Catholic and Joanna la Beltraneja. The ruling that abolished the tax was handed down on 11 May 1852, a date commemorated ever since with giants and bigheads, the release of young cows, bull runs and novillada bullfights, for which a bullring is put up every year. Declared a Fiesta de Interés Turístico Regional (an official regional tourist-interest designation) in 2005, it fills the streets of the walled town with people.
The Treaty of Alcañices and the border
Historical milestone
By the Treaty of Alcañices of 1297 the town passed into the hands of Portugal, in the great readjustment of the frontier between the two crowns. It did not return to Castile until 1326, following a marriage agreement, and from that swing was born its condition as a stronghold of the border.