Village
A Ribeira de Piquín is a concello in the Meira comarca, in the province of Lugo, wedged into a narrow valley that the river Eo forms between the Serra de Meira and the Serra do Pousadoiro, also crossed by the rivers Rodil and Lúa; its highest points, the Pena de Ouviaña and the Pena Grande, rise above 880 metres. It follows the trend of inland Galicia, with a scattered, ageing population: it has lost about three quarters of its inhabitants since 1900, when it had 2,229, mainly through emigration to Argentina and Cuba linked to smallholdings and scant mechanisation of the land. Its church of San Xoán de Baos, belonging to the Order of Malta, bears a sundial from 1742 and five skulls set into the wall. It has about 500 inhabitants.
Monument
Temple raised in 1782 in austere Neoclassicism, with a Latin-cross plan, slate walls — the material that dominates all the traditional architecture of this wedged valley of the upper Eo — an ashlar façade and a bellcote over the gable; it is the benchmark church of the parish that gives the concello its name.
Monument
A church of medieval origin that preserves a Neoclassical altarpiece and a polychrome carving of Santo André from the fifteenth century, the oldest sculptural piece in the concello's religious heritage.
Monument
Beneath this site, in the parish of Navallos in the concello of A Ribeira de Piquín, Roman mining galleries are preserved, dug into the meander formed by the confluence of the Rodil river with the Eo; from this comes the very place name of Montefurado. In its surroundings iron objects and bronze fibulae appeared, documenting the castro-period and Roman occupation of the valley. According to the IGE, in 2013 the place had 9 inhabitants.
Nature
A waterfall surrounded by centuries-old oaks and chestnuts, one of the most celebrated spots in the concello and the goal of one of its waymarked routes; the woodland covering it preserves the traditional uses of the chestnut grove.
Nature
The Eo crosses the concello hemmed in between slate slopes, in the upper stretch of a river that will end up flowing into the estuary of Ribadeo; its waters and its riverside woods are the axis of the municipal landscape.
Nature
A range that flanks the Eo valley, paired with the Serra de Meira on the opposite side; between the two lies a territory of scattered villages and hills of heather, oak and chestnut.
Nature
The concello of A Ribeira de Piquín forms part of the Río Eo, Oscos y Tierras de Burón Biosphere Reserve, declared by Unesco, which extends over around 1,600 square kilometres between Galicia and Asturias. Alongside Ribeira de Piquín, the reserve is made up, on the Galician side, of the municipalities of Ribadeo, Trabada, A Pontenova, Baleira, A Fonsagrada and Negueira de Muñiz, and on the Asturian side Castropol, Vegadeo, Taramundi and the three Oscos councils. The area covers the whole basin of the Eo river, from its source in Fonteo to its mouth in the ría of Ribadeo, and is recognised for the conservation of Atlantic forest and traditional agrarian uses; when it was designated, the area had around 33,000 inhabitants, although most of its municipalities are losing population.
Curiosity
From this concello came the craftsman José Seivane, who set up his first bagpipe workshop at the age of eighteen and created a school through which other makers passed; the surname Seivane is today synonymous with the Galician bagpipe.
Activity
The concello has three waymarked routes, set up around 2017, which link the Eo valley with the Fervenza dos Portelos and with the slate villages of the Meira and Pousadoiro ranges.
Nature
Part of the Natura 2000 network, the Carballido special area of conservation protects two ancient ravine forests in the upper headwaters of the river Eo, spread across A Pontenova, A Ribeira de Piquín and A Fonsagrada, covering 4,828 hectares: to the north, the das Reigadas and do Sanxés forests, and to the south, the surroundings of the river Rodil, a tributary of the Eo. Above oak woods of Quercus robur, with Pyrenean oak and chestnut trees in the ravines, there are meadows, birch groves, heathland and peat bogs at higher altitude, with endemic species such as the Asturian daffodil or the fern Vandenboschia speciosa. The presence of the wolf stands out, along with bats, the long-tailed salamander, endemic lizards and river mammals such as the otter and the desman. Declared an SCI (Site of Community Importance) in 2004 and an SAC (Special Area of Conservation) in 2014, it forms part of the Reserva de la Biosfera Río Eo, Oscos y Terras de Burón.
Nature
The upper stretch of the Eo hemmed in between the sierra of Meira and that of Pousadoiro, included in the biosphere reserve of the river Eo, Oscos and Terras de Burón; its alder banks hold trout and otters.
Curiosity
In the porch of this church five skulls are displayed within niches, alongside an eighteenth-century sundial, an unusual funerary custom that has made the church a much visited place.
Activity
Three waymarked itineraries set out from the municipal capital and run through the hills and the banks of the Eo, crossing hamlets, mills and woods in a municipal district where trees cover eighty per cent of the ground.
Historical milestone
The parishes of the Eo valley separate in 1935 from the municipality of Meira and form their own council, with its capital at O Chao de Pousadoiro; it is one of the latest-created Galician concellos.
Food and drink
A honey covered by a protected geographical indication which in the hills of the Eo is obtained above all from heather and chestnut; the traditional apiaries were protected with stone walls against bears and livestock.
Historical milestone
In 1935 these parishes separated from the district of Meira and formed a concello of their own, which explains the abrupt demographic fall recorded by the statistics of the Cistercian villa from that year onwards.