Logbook · 7 places

What to see and do in Calvos de Randín

What to see and do in Calvos de Randín (Limia, Ourense): 7 places across monuments, nature, activities and curiosities, with a photo and a Google Maps location.

1 Villages · 2 Monuments · 1 Nature · 2 Curiosities · 1 Historical milestones

How far each place is from the centre of Calvos de Randín

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Spain › Galicia › Ourense › Limia › Calvos de Randín

What to see and do in Calvos de Randín

Calvos de Randín
Village
Calvos de Randín is a concello of around 900 inhabitants in the comarca of La Limia, in the province of Ourense, situated beside the sierras of Larouco, O Xurés and A Pena and watered by the river Salas, a tributary of the Limia. Its border position with Portugal shaped its history: part of its territory belonged to the Couto Mixto, whose residents were exempt from paying taxes to the crowns of Castile and Portugal, could freely choose which kingdom to belong to and elected their own mayor, privileges abolished after the Treaty of Lisbon of 1864. It preserves megalithic sites such as the mámoas of Monte Meau, settlements of castrexa culture and several Baroque churches from the 17th and 18th centuries, including that of Santiago de Rubiás, which keeps a round-arched Romanesque window in its apse.
Church of Santiago de Rubiás
Monument
Rebuilt in the eighteenth century, it keeps in the apse a Romanesque round-arched window from the earlier building; the rest of the fabric answers to later alterations, as in so many temples of the border country. Rubiás was, along with Santiago and Meaus, one of the three villages of the Couto Mixto, the small frontier republic extinguished in the nineteenth century.
Palace of os Tejada
Monument
A manor house of the 18th and 19th centuries that follows the classic model of the Galician pazo; the same municipality keeps the Pazo de Randín, now partly ruined and L-shaped in plan, another example of the gentry of the raia seca.
Reservoir of o Salas
Nature
A reservoir formed by the Salas river and opened in 1971, located mainly in the neighbouring concello of Muíños; its waters also flood the southern tip of Calvos de Randín and part of the Portuguese freguesía of Tourém, in the concello of Montalegre. Calvos de Randín, a municipality of almost 98 square kilometres and nine parishes, borders Portugal to the south and is surrounded by the Serra do Larouco, do Xurés and da Pena, which rise above 1,400 metres and give it a very rainy oceanic mountain climate; the shores of the reservoir close off the municipality to the south.
Monteagudo air crash
Curiosity
On 22 February 1944 a British aircraft crashed on Mount Monteagudo and all six of its occupants died; the event became fixed in the memory of a border district crossed by smuggling during the world war. It was a Lockheed Hudson of No. 48 Squadron of the Royal Air Force, flying from Gibraltar to England together with twelve other aircraft: the squadron, which had been in Gibraltar since December 1942 carrying out maritime patrols in the Mediterranean, was returning to re-equip with Douglas Dakota aircraft ahead of Operation Overlord. On that same mission another Hudson crashed in the Portuguese Serra da Estrela, near Loriga, and all its occupants also died.
The privileges of the Couto Mixto
Curiosity
The Couto Mixto was an independent micro-state in the valley of the river Salas, on the northern slope of the sierra do Larouco, between Galicia and Portugal, made up of the hamlets of Santiago — where the capital was established —, Rubiás and Meaus, with 26.9 square kilometres and no more than a thousand inhabitants around 1862-1864, according to its penultimate judge, Delfín Modesto Brandón. Linked since the late Middle Ages to the castle of A Picoña and later to the House of Braganza, it depended neither on the Portuguese nor the Spanish crown. Its residents enjoyed the right of asylum from the justice of both kingdoms, provided no soldiers to any army, were exempt from taxes, and had freedom to trade in salt, grow tobacco and choose Spanish or Portuguese nationality. With the Treaty of Lisbon of 1868 it came under Spanish sovereignty.
The end of the Couto Mixto
Historical milestone
The Couto Mixto was an independent micro-state located in the valley of the river Salas, in the sierra del Larouco, between Galicia and Portugal, made up of the hamlets of Santiago, capital of the territory, Rubiás and Meaus; it covered 26.9 km² and, according to its penultimate judge, had fewer than a thousand inhabitants between 1862 and 1864. Without being linked to either the Portuguese or the Spanish crown, it enjoyed privileges such as the right of asylum, exemption from providing soldiers and paying taxes, freedom of trade and cultivation, and the possibility for its residents to choose Spanish or Portuguese nationality. The Treaty of Lisbon of 1864 ended that sovereignty, and on 23 June 1868 the territory formally passed to Spain. Its residents had one year to choose their nationality.