Village
Carballo is the capital of the comarca of Bergantiños, in the province of A Coruña, with about 31,000 inhabitants, situated between Las Mariñas and the Costa da Morte, beside the river Anllóns. Its coastline holds the Razo-Baldaio sands, some five kilometres long, surrounded by the Baldaio marshes, rich in birdlife. Settlement goes back to the Palaeolithic, and it preserves megalithic remains such as the Pedra Moura dolmen and numerous castros, among them that of Torre Pardiñas, near which the Roman road Per Loca Maritima once ran. Its modern development owes much to a hyperthermal sulphurous spring, close to 42 degrees, known as the Baños Vellos and exploited since the 18th century, a period from which the remains of a thermal villa survive.
Nature
The dolmen of Pedra Moura, in the parish of Aldemunde (Carballo), is one of the largest dolmens in Galicia, measuring 2.40 by 3.20 metres; it forms part of the future Archaeological Park of Megalithism of the Costa da Morte and of the dense megalithic concentration of Bergantiños. Built between 3500 and 2700 BC, it has lost the mound that covered it and several of its orthostats have been shifted from their original position: only two remain in their initial location, and of the seven slabs (chantos) that made it up, five survive, the tallest 2.30 metres high. According to legend, the great stone was carried on her head by a moura, while she spun on a distaff and breastfed a baby.
Monument
A manor house whose origins go back to the reign of Carlos V and whose present fabric is from the 17th century, with a chapel of its own; on its grounds stands the Carballo de Santo Antonio, a monumental oak of great size.
Monument
A parish church rebuilt in 1925 in a modernist idiom on a building whose existence is documented from at least the 12th century; its façade is one of the few examples of religious modernism the comarca preserves.
Nature
Complex of beach, dunes, marsh and coastal lagoon with a stretch of sand some five kilometres long, one of the largest in Galicia and the most valuable wetland of Bergantiños; declared a special protection area for birds, it separates the open sea from a moving dune system and hosts wintering waders and an active traditional shellfishing on foot.
Nature
The fervenza de Entrecruces, also known as salto da Férveda, férveda de Sampaio, or fervenza de San Paio, is a natural waterfall on the Outón river, located in the parish of Entrecruces, in the municipality of Carballo, near where this river flows into the Grande. It exceeds forty metres in height amid riverside forest and is considered the largest waterfall in the municipality, one of the most notable wetland spots in the Bergantiños region.
Curiosity
A sulfurous spring whose use dates back to Roman times: in 1777 the architect Miguel Ferro Caaveiro drew up plans of the ancient baths during a lawsuit over their ownership, and today it is held to be the only active spa in the province.
Activity
A theatre festival held in October uninterruptedly since 1992, bringing together in Carballo Galician, Spanish and international companies, with performances at the Pazo da Cultura and street activities over several weeks; it is one of the longest-running performing-arts events in the northwest of the peninsula. It is organised by the Asociación Cultural Telón e Aparte with the collaboration of the Concello de Carballo, and it was created to fill a gap in the theatre programming of the province of A Coruña and to strengthen the weak theatrical structure of the Bergantiños region, which until then had lacked stable programming. In 2018 it received the Premio Cultura Galega de Artes Escénicas.
Activity
An international public art festival born in 2014 which each year invites muralists from different countries to work on abandoned walls and party walls in the town, turning the town centre into an open-air gallery.
Nature
Waterfall of some forty metres on the river Outón, in the parish of Entrecruces and a short distance from the built-up area, wedged into a stretch of riverside wood with alders and ash that keeps it in shade for much of the day; it is the greatest fall of water in the concello.
Nature
The dolmen of Pedra Moura, on the hill in the parish of Aldemunde, is one of the largest in Galicia in terms of the size of its slabs, measuring 2.40 by 3.20 metres; the mound has disappeared and the orthostats have shifted, so that only two retain their original position and five of the seven chantos that made it up remain, the tallest 2.30 metres high. It was raised between 3500 and 2700 BC and forms part of the future Parque Arqueolóxico do Megalitismo da Costa da Morte. According to legend, the stone was brought by a moura who carried it on her head while spinning and breastfeeding a baby.
Curiosity
Former wolfram mine whose abandoned pits filled with water and formed turquoise-coloured lagoons; the ore was extracted here mainly during the Second World War, from the time the mine opened in 1915, and since 1980 the hill has also been worked as a quarry for quartz and aggregates. Near the summit, at 387 metres, there was once a cromlech known as the Eira de las Brujas, stones arranged in a circle that oral tradition associated with witches' sabbaths on Saint John's Night, destroyed by mining and by the access road opened in the 1960s. The hill, inhabited as early as the Neolithic, also yielded the Arracada de Cances, a piece of castrexo goldwork found in 1950 during mining work and now in the Museo de Pontevedra.
Historical milestone
Alfredo Brañas, ideologue of 19th-century Galician regionalism, was born in Carballo on 11 January 1859, the son of a land registrar, and died in Santiago de Compostela on 21 February 1900. He studied Law at the University of Santiago, where he became secretary general, and worked as a lawyer and as professor of Natural Law in Oviedo and of Political Economy in Santiago. In 1889 he published in Barcelona El regionalismo. Estudio sociológico, histórico y literario, a work accepted by all sectors of Galicianism as a mandatory reference and which also had a great impact on Catalan regionalism; in 1890 he was honoured in Santiago at an event that united all Galicianist currents for the first time, and that same year he took part in the creation of the Asociación Regionalista Gallega.
Activity
The Festival Internacional Outono de Teatro has been held each October since 1992 and has made the villa a theatrical reference of the north-west, with Galician, national and international companies.