Village
A Pobra de Trives is a town in Ourense situated on the north-western slope of the sierra de Queixa, capital of the comarca of Tierra de Trives, where the foothills exceed 1,500 metres in altitude. Its name would derive from the tiburos, a Celtic tribe of the Astures whose capital, Nemetóbriga, may correspond to present-day Trives Viejo or Puente Navea; from that period survive remains of castros such as Cividá or As Cigadoñas. Through its territory runs the río Bibey, the Sil's most important tributary, which at the bottom of its canyon is crossed by the ponte Bibei, raised around the year 114 over the Roman Via Nova and declared a Monumento Nacional (a former heritage-protection designation, predecessor of today's Bien de Interés Cultural) since 1931. In the 19th century it was an important gathering centre for the Galician nobility. It has around 2,000 inhabitants.
Monument
Roman bridge on the Vía Nova that crosses the Bibei river between the parishes of Mendoia, in A Pobra de Trives, and A Enciñeira, in Quiroga, considered together with the puente do Freixo to be the best preserved in Galicia. It has three arches, of 6.09, 18.51 and 8.77 metres span, 75 metres of total length and 22.5 metres of height above the riverbed; its piers are built of granite ashlar bonded without joints or wedges, the stones clamped together. It was probably built under Trajan, around 114-119, for the passage of the Vía Nova, whose route was completed around the year 80; since then it has never ceased to be used as a crossing, today carrying the OU-636 road. It was declared a national historic-artistic monument on 3 June 1931.
Monument
On the left bank of the Bibei, beside the bridge, are preserved the foundational column of the work and a milestone of the emperor Titus, inscriptions that date and sign the passage of road XVIII of the Antonine Itinerary.
Monument
A monastery established around the tenth century that received royal privileges in 1228, one of the religious centres that organised the settlement of these highlands, today divided into nineteen parishes.
Nature
A fortified settlement which, like the nearby O Castro, O Castelo and As Cigadoñas, shows strong Romanisation, proof of the importance this area had when the Vía Nova crossed it from east to west.
Monument
Road XVIII of the Antonine Itinerary, which linked Braga with Astorga, crossed the concello by way of Ponte Navea, Trives Vello, Ponte Cabalar and Mendoia before leaving the municipal district over the Bibei bridge.
Nature
The Bibei river, a left-bank tributary of the Sil, runs 97 kilometres through the provinces of Zamora, Ourense and Lugo; it rises at 1,590 metres in the Zamora municipality of Porto and marks the northern boundary of A Pobra de Trives, hemmed in between mountains. It receives the Camba, Conso, San Miguel and Navea rivers on its left bank, and the Xares on its right, along with minor streams such as the San Lázaro, the Cabalar and the Fiscaíño, which tumble down in waterfalls before reaching it. At the boundary between Trives and Quiroga it is crossed by the Ponte do Bibei, a Roman bridge from the time of Trajan on the Vía Nova that linked Braga with Astorga, one of the best-preserved examples of ancient road engineering in Galicia.
Nature
At 1,707 metres it is one of the highest points in the concello, followed by As Chairas de Maceda at 1,685, on the edge of the Serra de Queixa, where the summits comfortably exceed fifteen hundred metres.
Curiosity
Nemetóbriga was a pre-Roman settlement referred to in classical sources as the chief town of the Tiburi, an Astur tribe, and a place of importance not only demographically but possibly religiously for the region; its significance was later recognised by the Romans, who incorporated the settlement into the route of the Vía Nova, the road that linked Bracara and Asturica Augustas. Its name combines the Celtic words nemeton, sacred place, and briga, height or stronghold, also present in place names such as Nemetacum, today Arras, or Cantabriga, present-day Cambridge. Researchers place ancient Nemetóbriga at A Pobra de Trives, though there is no agreement on its location: Ponte Navea has been proposed, defended by the philologist Georges Dottin in 1915, Trives Vello, the majority option, and also Mendoia.
Curiosity
Local sweet made with bread dough, lard, eggs, sugar, cinnamon and flour, which visitors traditionally took home as a souvenir and which has its own festival on the last Sunday in July.
Activity
It is held on the mountain of Cabeza de Manzaneda on the last Sunday of July, since 1972, in honour of the town's traditional sweet; more than 3,000 portions of bica are handed out among those attending, together with coffee liqueur. Together with the feast of San Bartolomé, at the end of August, and that of the Santísimo Cristo da Misericordia, in September, it marks the municipality's festive calendar.
Curiosity
Road XVIII of the Antonine Itinerary entered by Ponte Navea, crossed Trives Vello, Ponte Cabalar and Mendoia and left by the Bibei bridge; its bridges and milestones still punctuate the valley.
Monument
The seigneurial house of the villa, one of the most notable civil buildings of a comarca that in the Middle Ages belonged for the most part to the counts of Lemos and afterwards kept a numerous rural gentry.
Nature
The municipality preserves several Romanised fortified settlements, such as A Cividá, O Castro, O Castelo or As Cigadoñas, occupied by the Tiburi who worked the gold of these valleys before the arrival of Rome.
Monument
At the place of Cova the remains are preserved of one of the hermitages and monastic houses raised at the beginning of the Middle Ages on these slopes, forerunners of the monasticism that would fill the Ribeira Sacra.
Nature
The rivers San Lázaro, Cabalar and Fiscaíño come down from the sierra de Queixa and flow into the Bibei forming cascades, a string of falls hidden among woods that are visited by local paths.
Activity
The only ski resort in Galicia sits on the Cabeza Grande de Manzaneda, with slopes above one thousand seven hundred metres; it also works in summer as a mountain complex with routes and activities.
Food and drink
An artisan sponge cake of dense crumb and sugary crust, one of the most celebrated bicas of Ourense along with those of O Castro, Sas de Penelas and Laza; it is cut into cubes and taken with coffee or with coffee liqueur.
Food and drink
A winter sausage made with pig's gut stuffed with marinated rib and cured in the smoke of the lareira; it calls for long boiling and is served with cachelos, greens and cabbage on the tables of the comarca during the cold months.
Monument
Inaugurated on 14 September 1885, it holds a crucifix carved in wood brought from the Mount of Olives, in the Holy Land; it closes one end of the historic quarter of large houses of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Monument
It is all that was left of the demolished church of San Bartolomé; it was rebuilt in 1995 and on its fabric one can read the inscription 'As I am I once was, leave me like this for ever', which sums up its eventful history.
Curiosity
A nineteenth-century granite building decorated with showy canopies, where the well-off families of the town gambled and gathered; it closed in the middle of the twentieth century and remains one of the emblems of the old quarter.