Village
Melide is a town in the province of A Coruña, capital of the region of Terra de Melide, with 7,563 inhabitants (IGE 2023), situated at an altitude of 454 metres where the Serra do Bocelo drops towards the Ulla basin, on the river Furelos. It is the point where the French Way meets the Primitive Way, which from the 9th century onward drove urban growth around the castle and gave rise to the burgo novo of merchants and innkeepers. In 1320 the archbishop of Santiago, Berenguel de Lendoira, granted it toll rights and permission to build walls; nothing remains of that wall, torn down in the Irmandiño revolt, since in 1841 the Concello auctioned off its last remains. It is famous for its melindres sweets and for the cruceiro of San Roque, the oldest in Galicia.
Monument
A Romanesque church of the late 12th century, with a single nave and a semicircular apse, declared a Monumento Nacional (Spain's heritage designation in force until 1931); the apse vault keeps 16th-century paintings of the Trinity surrounded by apostles and angels, and a wrought-iron screen with no parallel in the Galician Romanesque.
Monument
14th-century Gothic cross located next to the chapel of San Roque, in the churchyard of the same name in Melide. It rests on a stone base with an octagonal column of more recent workmanship, joined to it by an iron ring. The front face shows Christ in Majesty, arms raised and palms open facing forward, and the back the scene of the Crucifixion. Castelao described it in 1950 as the oldest wayside cross in Galicia, and it still retains traces of the original polychromy that decorated its figures.
Monument
Chapel of the town that houses the Romanesque doorway moved from the vanished church of San Pedro de Melide, reused as its entrance; in its forecourt stands the Gothic wayside cross that gives the site its fame and overlooks the Way. It is a 14th-century cross which, according to Alfonso Daniel Rodríguez Castelao, would be the oldest surviving one in Galicia. It stands on a stone base and an octagonal column joined to the cross by an iron ring; the front face shows Christ in Majesty, arms open and palms facing forward, and the back the scene of the Crucifixion.
Monument
A humpbacked bridge over the River Furelos already mentioned in the 12th-century Codex Calixtinus and altered above all in the 17th; it measures close to fifty metres long by 3.7 wide and crosses the channel with four unequal granite arches.
Monument
A late Romanesque church standing right on the line of the Camino Francés, at the entrance to the hamlet of Furelos; it keeps altarpieces and carvings of notable artistic value, among them a Christ by the local sculptor Manuel Cajide.
Monument
A small Romanesque-Gothic church with a single nave and a semicircular apse beside the Camino Francés; its pointed doorway carries a tympanum with the Virgin seated with the Child between two thurifer angels, and 16th-century paintings survive inside.
Monument
A Baroque palace built in 1671 as a charitable institution to care for the poor and for pilgrims; after centuries of various uses it now houses Melide's town hall, in the heart of the old town and a few metres from the Camino.
Monument
A parish church of the late 13th century, in the rural outskirts of the municipality, which keeps beneath its later alterations the medieval plan of a single nave; it is one of Melide's oldest churches outside the town.
Monument
A chapel put up in 1741 under the Carmelite dedication, whose feast on 16 July is celebrated in the town with a procession that many of the devout join barefoot, a penitential custom still alive in the comarca.
Nature
A leisure area on the edge of the town, with a wooded picnic ground, a children's area and open-air swimming pools beside the channel; it is the municipality's main summer bathing spot and a welcome stop for pilgrims.
Curiosity
The town's fame for octopus was born of its cattle fairs, held at the geographical centre of Galicia, where the carters sold dried octopus brought from the coast; today it is sustained by the pilgrims of the Camino Francés and the Camino Primitivo.
Curiosity
A sweet of fine dough covered in icing which, along with the ricos and the amendoados, makes up the town's traditional trio of pastries; it has its own festival on the second Sunday in May, when the local bakers fill the square.
Curiosity
A carving of the crucified Christ that presides over the altar of the church at Furelos with its right hand unnailed and reaching out towards the viewer; popular reading sees in the gesture a Christ who, even in his agony, leans towards whoever looks at him.
Curiosity
A tannery that worked from 1817 until the 1960s using the river's water and the oak bark of the neighbouring hills; its buildings are the main industrial evidence the municipality preserves.
Monument
A comarcal museum created in 1978 by a group of local people and moved in 1982 to the old Espíritu Santo pilgrims' hospital; it brings together archaeology and ethnography sections, with rooms devoted to flax, wool and the traditional trades.
Activity
Patron saint festival of Melide (A Coruña) celebrated between 15 and 21 August, the largest of the Melide calendar: during those days the town's population can triple. Saint Roch replaced Saint Sebastian as patron of the chapel in 1722, and events are centred around it and its 14th-century Gothic crucero, which art historian Alfonso Daniel Rodríguez Castelao considered the oldest in Galicia. Performances by orchestras and musical groups, for which the Cantón de San Roque is closed off, are among the biggest attractions, and since 1915 the festival of the flower has also been held, with a gala dance in the town hall's hall.
Monument
Founded in the 14th century as a Franciscan enclave beside the Camino, its church was rebuilt around 1498 by Sancho Sánchez de Ulloa, the most important architectural undertaking of that lineage in the villa.
Activity
At Melide the Camino Primitivo, the route that set out from Oviedo, joins the Camino Francés; that confluence of pilgrims explains the birth of the new borough and the villa's fame as an inn town until the 16th century.
Historical milestone
The Junta of the Santa Hermandad of the Kingdom of Galicia held its first great meeting in Melide, and the villa was chosen, according to the texts, because it lay in the middle of the Kingdom; between 1467 and 1469 there were five assemblies.
Historical milestone
Archbishop Berenguel de Landoira granted the villa a toll right and licence to enclose its commercial borough; nothing remains of that wall, for on 12 January 1841 the concello put the last remains up for auction.
Historical milestone
A Lugo document of that year cites for the first time the territory of Abeancos, the present land of Melide, and hamlets such as Zaramil, Paradela or Boente, although the villa of Melide is not yet mentioned.
Activity
The melindre is a fried sweet from Galician pastry-making shaped like a small ring doughnut, dipped in a water-and-sugar syrup that gives it its whitish coating; it is made with butter, flour, eggs and sugar, sometimes with aniseed, and baked until it turns a light colour. On the second Sunday of May, Melide honours its traditional pastry-making in a festival created in 1991 by the town council, which in its early editions shared the bill with the celebration of Galician veal and the horse fair before turning, from 2008, exclusively to the melindre, the rico and the amendoados; declared a Fiesta de Interés Turístico de Galicia (an official Galician recognition of a festival's touristic interest) in 2013, each edition brings together an opening address, traditional music and tributes to the town's trades and residents.
Food and drink
Although the sea is far away, this Camino villa became famous for octopus boiled in a copper cauldron, cut with scissors onto a wooden plate and dressed with oil, coarse salt and paprika, served with bread and wine.
Curiosity
On the second Sunday of September the pilgrimage festival of the saint is held, popularly known as the festa dos borrachos: a jocular version of his martyrdom tells that he asked to die drowned in a butt of wine.
Historical milestone
During the irmandiña revolt the rebels razed the fortress of the Ulloa and part of the wall of the borough; in 1498 Sancho de Ulloa obtained permission from the archbishop to reuse that stone in the main chapel of the convent of Sancti Spiritus.
Food and drink
A biscuit of flour, lard, sugar, egg, lemon and anise that is made only in this comarca; together with the melindre and the amendoado it forms the sweet triad on which the town's reputation for pastry rests.