Village
Folgoso do Courel is a concello in the southeast of the province of Lugo, in the comarca of Quiroga, spread across the serra do Caurel between 400 and 1,600 metres above sea level, with peaks such as Formigueiros, at 1,643 metres. The rivers that cross it form valleys with varied ecosystems that make this sierra Galicia's largest botanical reserve. It has fewer than a thousand inhabitants, in decline and ageing, and its links with the rest of Galicia are scarce because of the territory's isolation. It preserves the castle of O Carbedo and the hamlet of Seceda, declared a sitio histórico (Spanish protection designation for sites of historic interest) in 1997 for its excellent state of preservation, typical of the villages of the Caurel. The poet Uxío Novoneyra was born here, and the Aradelas sinkhole opens up, the deepest cave in Galicia.
Monument
Ensemble of vernacular architecture declared a cultural asset in the parish of Vilamor, with the chapel of Santo Estevo, numerous communal ovens and the Fonte do Milagro, surrounded by centuries-old chestnut trees and cork oaks.
Monument
Hamlet declared a cultural asset whose steep streets pass beneath passageways linking one house to another and sharing a roof, the medieval structure known locally as empoleirada; it preserves a fountain and the church of San Silvestre.
Nature
Fortified settlement that preserves its defensive walls, reached by a path that crosses groves of centuries-old chestnut trees, one of the most characteristic agrarian landscapes of these mountains.
Nature
Castro settlement located in the parish of Visuña, one of the four great fortified settlements spread across the concello along with those of Vilar, Miraz and A Torre, near Sobredo.
Nature
Fortified settlement notable for the preserved height of its walls and for the burials documented in its surroundings, in a concello of nine parishes spread over 193 square kilometres of mountain.
Nature
Native woodland on the northern slope of the Formigueiros peak where more than eight hundred species of trees and plants live side by side — ash, beech, yew and birch on the same hillside — thanks to the contact between limestone and siliceous soils. It was the first woodland in Spain to obtain FSC certification and is included in the Ancares-Courel special area of conservation. The two versions disagree over its extent: some three hundred hectares according to one, some three thousand according to the other.
Nature
Two adjoining springs in the heart of the Devesa da Rogueira that gush from a rock face: from one comes clear water and from the other reddish water, because of its high iron content, a striking contrast.
Nature
Lake of glacial origin at an altitude of around 1,400 metres, considered one of the most emblematic spots of the Serra do Courel and direct evidence of the ice that covered these summits.
Nature
At 1,643 metres it is the greatest height of the Serra do Courel, followed by Pía Paxaro, at 1,610; on its northern slope the Devesa da Rogueira shelters, protected from the sun by the bulk of the mountain itself.
Nature
A massif of 212 square kilometres with altitudes ranging from 400 to 1,600 metres, considered Galicia's most important botanical reserve for its mix of Atlantic and Mediterranean species. Together with the neighbouring Serra dos Ancares, it forms part of the Rede Natura 2000 network and is protected as a Site of Community Importance and Special Area of Conservation; within it lies the Monumento Natural do Dobramento Xeolóxico de Campodola-Leixazós. It is one of the few areas of Galicia where the brown bear can still be found. In one of its potholes the oldest human remains preserved in Galicia were found, between eight thousand and ten thousand years old, along with the only aurochs remains found in the country. These lands were a major touchstone in the work of the poet Uxío Novoneyra, a native of Parada de Moreda.
Nature
The Lor and its tributaries cross the concello wedged between the ranges and carve the valley that structures the whole massif, from the four hundred metres of the riverbed up to the summits, generating a mosaic of floodplains, chestnut groves and riverside woods; its basin is considered the most important botanical reserve in Galicia and sustains much of the biodiversity of these mountains of eastern Lugo.
Nature
The Aradelas pothole, in the parish of Esperante, in Folgoso do Courel, is Galicia's deepest cavity, at 128 metres, and its deepest part is flooded by underground waters forming a lagoon, named Hydra. Long known to local residents, it was not scientifically explored until 1972, when the first 120 metres were reached; successive campaigns went on discovering new shafts and galleries, and in 2024 a new exploration found an additional entrance, the Cova Emilio, and 2.2 km more of galleries. The Vigo caving club Espeleo Club Aradelas took its name from it. The pothole opens into the limestone karst of the Courel mountains, which has produced the largest known concentration of caves in Galicia, and also includes the caves of Tralacosta and Ceza.
Nature
A cave with an 840-metre passage located in Noceda, in Folgoso do Courel, near the boundary with Pedrafita do Cebreiro, through which flows a small stream rising from an underground lagoon; it is one of the largest in the Courel karst along with the cova de Tralacosta. Inside, fossils of Quaternary fauna have been found, including remains of cave bears, following several explorations carried out since the 1980s. It forms part of the Courel Geopark, and since 2015 visiting it has required permission from the Xunta de Galicia.
Nature
Territory of 577.85 square kilometres recognised by UNESCO on 11 April 2019 as the first world geopark in Galicia and the fourteenth in Spain; it covers this concello, Quiroga and Ribas de Sil.
Curiosity
The Tabula Hospitalis do Courel, also known as the Táboa de Hospitalidade de Carbedo, is a bronze tablet bearing a Latin text from the Roman period of Galicia, found in O Carbedo, in Folgoso do Courel, and kept since 1959 in the Museo de Lugo. The plaque, measuring 18.5 by 13.7 centimetres, is framed by a columned moulding with a triangular pediment and a male head in high relief, and records a pact of hospitality between the seurro Tilego, son of Ambato, and the lougeis of the castellum Toletensis, by which he, together with his family and descendants, committed himself in exchange for perpetual protection. It is a pact between a private individual and an indigenous community, authorised by the Roman authorities, and it is one of the oldest written documents of this mountain.
Nature
Cavity in the Courel karst in which ceramic remains appeared proving that it was frequented in prehistoric times, one of the many hollows that the limestone has opened beneath these slopes.
Curiosity
Cave formed by a single gallery of some thirty metres, the most modest of the concello's set of cavities, but a good example of how water has gradually bored through the Palaeozoic limestone.
Monument
The poet's family home in Parada, built by his great-grandfather during the Third Carlist War, retains the structure of an old mountain farmhouse and an archive of more than two thousand documents. Here Uxío Novoneyra was born in 1930, the son of a peasant family for whom Folgoso do Courel was the main touchstone of his poetry, considered among the finest in Galician literature for its treatment of landscape; in 2010 the Día das Letras Galegas was dedicated to him. Between 1953 and 1962 he lived in seclusion in the municipality, after falling ill with pleurisy, and it was in those years that he wrote much of Os Eidos, the poetry collection with which he began his most acclaimed poetic cycle.
Activity
A trail signposted as PR-G 222 and the most walked route in the Courel mountains, climbing from Moreda through the massif's most valuable forest up to the Alto do Couto and the summit pastures, passing by the Fontes do Cervo, two adjoining springs with different waters, one ferruginous and one calcareous. The devesa da Rogueira, covering some 30 km², holds a remarkable richness of fauna and flora thanks to the meeting of oceanic and Mediterranean climates, with oaks, beeches, yews and birches, and is home to endemic species of the northern Iberian Peninsula such as the Iberian newt and the Iberian stream frog, as well as roe deer and wildcats; on its granite ledges the raven and the peregrine falcon nest. The forest received FSC certification in 2020 for its management and conservation of biodiversity.
Monument
Fortress at 930 metres above sea level on a height in the parish of Esperante, mentioned in 1550 as Fortaleza de Courel by Licenciado Molina. It belonged to Nuno Peláez, who later ceded it to the Knights of the Order of Santiago. It preserves stretches of wall, a circular tower and internal divisions, and has been a Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection) since 17 October 1994. The latest archaeological excavations, in 1977 and 1979, were directed by a team coordinated by José María Luzón Nogué and Francisco Javier Sánchez-Palencia; their results were published in 1980 in the book El Caurel, edited by the Ministerio de Cultura.
Nature
At 1,643 metres it is the greatest height of the sierra do Courel, followed by Pía Paxaro with 1,610. From its summit one can appreciate the difference in height of more than a thousand metres that separates the summits from the floor of the Lor valley.
Monument
The house that today houses the foundation dedicated to Uxío Novoneyra is preserved in the hamlet of Parada, where the poet was born on 19 January 1930 and where, after falling ill with pleurisy in 1953, he lived in seclusion until 1962; Folgoso de Caurel was from then on the main physical reference point of his verse, especially of the poetry collection Os Eidos, published in 1955 with texts written between 1952 and 1953. The son of a peasant family, Novoneyra became one of the most outstanding voices of 20th-century Galician poetry, and in 2010 the Día das Letras Galegas was dedicated to him; he died in Santiago de Compostela in 1999. The family house, restored in the early 21st century, has a ground floor and one upper storey, with a cellar, stables and forge around a courtyard, and today houses the foundation that bears his name.
Nature
Vilar, Miraz and Torexe are the three best identified fortified settlements of the sierra. They occupy spurs that dominate the Lor valley and explain the settlement prior to the Roman gold working.
Curiosity
The Buraca das Choias is a cave located in the hamlet of Visuña, in the council of Folgoso do Courel. In 2018, a joint team of caving, diving and university groups from Galicia and Madrid accessed its flooded galleries, surveyed the whole complex and discovered new passages with possible extensions still unexplored, going on to cover nearly three hundred metres of conduits.
Historical milestone
A bronze tablet found at O Carbedo in 1959 records the agreement by which the Seurran Tilegus, son of Ambatus, and the Lougei of the castellum Toletensis undertook to protect one another. It is kept in the museum of Lugo.
Activity
Every November the sierra celebrates its most identity-defining product, the chestnut of the soutos that cover the slopes of the Lor. It is roasted at the magosto and is also used in traditional stews and desserts of the Lugo mountains.
Food and drink
The heather and chestnut honey of these mountains was gathered in alvarizas, enclosures of high circular wall built to stop the bear from reaching the hives. Several are still preserved spread over the sierra.