Village
Boiro is a concello in the province of A Coruña, in the comarca of Barbanza, with about 19,000 inhabitants and 86.58 square kilometres that combine the sierra do Barbanza with a coastal strip of about 37 kilometres on the ría of Arousa, with beaches such as those of Carragueiros and Barraña. Together with Ribeira, Puebla del Caramiñal and Rianjo it forms the Mancomunidad Arosa Norte, linked by the AG-11 and, via the bridge between Catoira and Rianjo, with the AP-9. Its mountains, which at Fontefría come close to 600 metres, leave the interior almost unpopulated, while the population concentrates on the coast and in the valleys of the Coroño and Grande rivers. It preserves the castro of Neixón, one of the most studied Iron Age sites in Galicia, and the tower of Goiáns.
Nature
Two fortified settlements on the Punta Neixón peninsula, in the parish of Cespón, municipality of Boiro, on the northern shore of the ría de Arousa: the Castro Pequeno, from the 6th to 4th centuries BC, and the Castro Grande, inhabited until the 4th century AD; they were excavated by Florentino López Cuevillas in the 1920s, then by Fernando Acuña Castroviejo in the 1970s and Xurxo Ayán Vila between 2004 and 2007. The complex, declared a Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection) in 2011, preserves circular stone houses and, at the Castro Grande, a defensive ditch more than three metres deep. Among the finds are fragments of glass and Punic pottery, evidence of contact with Mediterranean trade. Next to the site is the Centro Arqueolóxico do Barbanza, opened in 2002.
Monument
Opened in 2002 at the foot of the Neixón castros, it serves both as a visitor reception centre and as the base for the archaeological excavation and research campaigns across the whole peninsula. It is located on the Punta Neixón isthmus, at the place of Nine, next to the large and small Neixón castros. Arranged over three floors, it displays reproductions of the main evidence of the prehistoric occupations that transformed the landscape from the Neolithic to the Iron Age: a castrexo dwelling, petroglyphs and copies of some of the remains found in the excavations. Besides the permanent exhibition, it organises talks, screenings and archaeological, historical, environmental and ethnographic routes around the area.
Monument
A seafaring pazo on the banks of the River Coroño, at Escarís, built in the 16th century by the Fandiño Gayoso family on an earlier defensive tower razed during the irmandiño revolts and rebuilt in the 17th century.
Monument
A parish church that preserves a stone baldachin, a rare piece in rural Galicia, and a Baroque altarpiece holding a relic of Saint Vincent; the calvary of Cespón stands beside it.
Nature
The castro de Achadizo is a fortified Iron Age settlement, in the parish of Castro, in Boiro, near Cabo de Cruz, one of the coastal castros of the area. It was inhabited between the 6th and 2nd centuries BC, and its location may have responded not only to defensive criteria but also to the production and exchange of metal objects. The excavations brought to light dwellings, a stone wall and several shell middens revealing a shellfish-gathering economy; among the finds, rotary querns stand out, contradicting the idea that it was the Romans who introduced them to Galicia. The site was discovered in 1991 by fourth-year pupils from the local school, and the excavations, directed by the archaeologist Anxo Concheiro, continued until 1994.
Monument
More than seventy mámoas have been catalogued on the high plains of the range, one of the largest megalithic concentrations in Galicia in number and variety, with mounds, dolmens and cists spread over the common land.
Nature
A granite ridge separating the ría de Muros e Noia, to the north-west, from the ría de Arousa, to the south-east, dotted with mámoas and petroglyphs and with long expanses of scrub and peat bog on its summit plains.
Nature
The Iroite is the highest point of the sierra del Barbanza, between the rías de Muros e Noia and de Arousa, at an altitude of 687 metres; its summit is shared by the municipalities of Boiro, Porto do Son and Lousame, and from it the two rías flanking the peninsula can be taken in at a single glance. At the summit is the base of the Escuadrón de Vigilancia Aérea número 10, a military base created in 1980 and officially opened in 1985, which collaborates on missions with the Centro de Coordinación de Salvamento Marítimo de Fisterra and other institutions. At its foot, to the south and west, stretch the Chans do Iroite, a peneplain known for its megalithic necropolis, where the chambered mámoas of the Casota do Páramo and the Arca de Barbanza stand out.
Nature
Semi-urban stretch of sand some 2,150 metres long by 35 wide, of shallow, calm water sheltered by the ría of Arousa, with a seafront promenade and a pinewood behind it and regularly awarded the blue flag; it is the busiest beach in the municipality and the usual setting for seafaring festivals.
Curiosity
Galicia keeps close to 3,400 mussel rafts spread over 44 designated areas, and almost seventy per cent of them float in the ría de Arousa; from these wooden platforms hang the ropes on which the mussels fatten for months.
Monument
A rural church that preserves the Romanesque design of its chevet in the parish of Lampón; to its surroundings belongs one of the most notable groups of cruceiros in the municipality, headed by that of A Madalena.
Monument
The remains of the stronghold of the Mariño lineage, which dominated this shore of the ría de Arousa; of the medieval enclosure the towered body survives, witness to the seigneurial power that the irmandiño revolt fought in the 15th century.
Curiosity
A cruceiro of the parish of Lampón which stands out for its exceptional height among the thousands of wayside crosses spread across Galicia; together with the calvary of Cespón it forms the most valuable group in the municipality.
Curiosity
A plateau of the sierra de O Barbanza with one of the greatest concentrations of mámoas in Galicia, burial tumuli raised between 4500 and 2800 BC and today crossed by a waymarked megalithic route.
Activity
A gastronomic festival of the mussel-raft harbour of Cabo da Cruz, in the parish of Castro, south of Boiro and on the shores of the ria of Arousa, where mussel farming on bateas (rafts) is the main economic sector of a population devoted to the sea. Known as the Exaltación do Mexillón, it is held every 15 August and honours the mollusc raised on the bateas of the ria of Arousa, considered the leading mussel-farming area in Europe, served steamed, in escabeche and in empanada. It thus joins other festivals in the local calendar of Cabo da Cruz, such as that of San Xoán or that of the Carmen, in a town that also lives from shellfish gathering and the canning industry.
Monument
A thirteenth-century church in transition from Romanesque to Gothic, completed in a Baroque key as late as the eighteenth; it preserves a Renaissance lintel beneath a pointed arch and presides over the parish of Bealo, inland in the concello.
Nature
The rego Lampreeira, a tributary of the río Cañoto, plunges more than thirty metres down a stepped rock face on the slope of the sierra of the Barbanza; it is among the highest waterfalls in Galicia and comes down at full strength in the rainy months.