Village
Ribadavia is the capital of the comarca of Ribeiro, in the province of Ourense, situated on the banks of the river Avia, which gives it its name, near its confluence with the Miño. Between 1065 and 1071 it was the capital of the Kingdom of Galicia under King García, thanks to its ecclesiastical power and the trade in Ribeiro wine; in the 12th century, monasteries such as San Clodio, Santa María de Melón and Osera drove its economic expansion linked to that same wine, while an active Jewish community, engaged in exporting it to northern Europe, prospered around the Porta Nova. With around 5,000 inhabitants, it is today a historic-artistic site thanks to its medieval Jewish quarter and the castle of the Sarmiento family, and every August it relives its past at the Festa da Istoria.
Curiosity
A Jewish quarter that ran from the main square to the town wall and flourished from the 11th century until the expulsion of 1492; its main street, today Merelles Caula, was called Rúa da Praza Vella, and the old synagogue stood on the Madalena square.
Monument
Fortification raised in the second half of the fifteenth century on a promontory beside the river Avia, from which it dominates the old town; it was the residence of the counts of Ribadavia of the Sarmiento house until the seventeenth century. Of its precinct there survive stretches of wall, towers and the parade ground, today open as an archaeological garden and used as an open-air auditorium.
Monument
A conventual church built between the 13th and 14th centuries, considered one of the finest examples of Galician mendicant Gothic; among its sculptural decoration the reliefs of angels playing the bagpipes stand out.
Monument
Former collegiate church and main church of the town, a good example of the late Romanesque of the early 13th century; it stands within the historic-artistic site declared on 17 October 1947, one of the best preserved in Galicia.
Monument
A church with its origins in the 12th and 13th centuries, when it was the parish of San Xes located inside the castle; the present building is of the 18th century and presides over the square that was the heart of the Jewish quarter, where the old synagogue stood.
Monument
The chapel of San Xes de Francelos stands at the heart of the parish of Francelos, in the municipality of Ribadavia, on the remains of a medieval monastery, now vanished, which some authors date as far back as the 9th century; its value lies in the fact that the rebuildings reused pre-Romanesque decorative elements from earlier structures, traces of a style rarely preserved in Galicia. The first record of the site dates from 986, and in 993 a document in the Tombo de Celanova already mentions the monastery of Francellos; the first reference to the chapel appears in a foro (land charter) of 1424. Single-naved and rectangular in plan, it measures 8.6 by 5.75 metres, with a wooden gabled roof and masonry walls with carved ashlar blocks among the pre-Romanesque elements. The original dedication to Santa María Magdalena was later changed to San Xes. It was declared a national monument in 1951.
Monument
Created in 1969 and housed in the pazo de Baamonde, known as the Casa da Fundación, it brings together tools and equipment of wine culture along with an extensive photographic and audiovisual archive on everyday life in the Ribeiro.
Activity
A celebration documented in origin in the 17th century, lost in 1868 and revived in 1989, that turns the town into a medieval city with its own currency, the maravedí; it was declared a festival of national tourist interest in 1997.
Curiosity
The oldest Denomination of Origin in Galicia, recognised in 1932, protecting some 2,646 hectares of vineyard in the valleys of the rivers Arnoia, Avia and Miño, around Ribadavia (Ourense), with varieties such as treixadura, torrontés, godello, loureira and caíño, and the rare tostado, made from raisined grapes. Ribeiro wine was already mentioned by the Greek Strabo in the 2nd century BC and was exported to Rome; in the Middle Ages, monks from the monasteries of San Clodio and Oseira centralised and defined its cultivation, and between the 14th and 15th centuries it was widely exported to France, Portugal, England and Italy along the river Miño. In the late 19th century, outbreaks of mildew and phylloxera forced much of the native varieties to be replaced with more resistant ones.
Activity
The Mostra Internacional de Teatro de Ribadavia was founded in 1984 by the Consellería de Cultura (Department of Culture) of the Xunta de Galicia, as a continuation of the Mostras de Teatro Abrente de Ribadavia held between 1973 and 1981, and is regarded as one of the most important theatre festivals in Galicia. It is held every July in various venues around the town, including the grounds of the Sarmiento castle, fitted out as an auditorium, the Igrexa da Madalena, the Casa da Cultura and the streets of the old town; it was directed in its time by Rubén García Fernández and is today led by Roberto Pascual. It has received the Premio da Cultura Galega en Artes Escénicas in 2013, the Premio Bianual de la FEGATEA in 2014 and the Premio da AELG in 2009.
Curiosity
A layout of narrow lanes around the Porta Nova where one of the most important Jewish communities in Galicia prospered, given over to trade and to crafts. Its memory today underpins much of the villa's identity.
Activity
A Festa da Istoria is held on the last weekend of August in Ribadavia and draws around 75,000 people each year; in 1997 it was declared a Fiesta de Interés Turístico Nacional (an official Spanish tourism-interest distinction). Already documented in the 18th century, it stopped being held after the Revolution of 1868 and was revived in 1989 by the San Andrés workshop-school together with the local scholar José Ramón Estévez, work later continued by a neighbourhood committee. The day opens with a speech read by a distinguished local resident and a parade of thousands of people dressed in period costume; it includes a bank where legal-tender currency is exchanged for maravedís, the coin of the festival, a living chess game with children as pieces, falconry displays, medieval dances and tournaments, and ends with a medieval dinner that can only be attended in period costume.
Historical milestone
Between 1065 and 1071 the villa was the court of García II, the son of Fernando I who received Galicia and Portugal in the division of the kingdom. That brief reign left Ribadavia the title of former capital of the Kingdom of Galicia.
Food and drink
From Ribadavia, the wines of the Ribeiro were shipped down the Miño, reaching France, Portugal, England, Italy and Flanders between the 14th and 17th centuries; it is recorded that in 1592, 127 pipes of ribeiro were shipped from the port of Ferrol, costing 190 reales. The designation of origin extends across the valleys of the Arnoia, Avia and Miño rivers, some 2,767 hectares, and today relies on white varieties such as treixadura, torrontés, godello or albariño and red ones such as caíño, sousón or brancellao, native varieties alongside others introduced after the phylloxera outbreak of the 1890s.