Village
Carballeda de Valdeorras is a concello in the comarca of Valdeorras, in the province of Ourense, situated between the massif of Pena Trevinca, which exceeds 2,100 metres, and the Serra do Eixe. The slate and schist mountains that dominate it have supported its main economic activity since the 1950s, quarrying. At Sobradelo stands the bridge of the same name, with seven arches and begun in the late 16th century, whose central arch was cut during the Peninsular War by the abbot of Casoio, who directed local alarms against the French troops. On the heights of Pena Trevinca survives O Teixadal de Casayo, the only yew forest in all of Galicia. The concello has about 1,300 inhabitants.
Nature
A wood of some two hectares at 1,350 metres, in the Pena Trevinca massif, with more than four hundred yews of great age living alongside rowans, hollies, ash and hazel; it is the only yew wood of its kind in Galicia.
Nature
Mountain range running north-west to south-east that reaches around 1,500 metres and closes off the Sil valley to the south, straddling the municipalities of A Veiga and Carballeda de Valdeorras, linking with the Pena Trevinca massif, where the southern summit of Trevinca, at 2,127 metres, and Pena Negra, at 2,119, rise. It is home to O Teixedal, a site unique in Europe, and glacial valleys; the hamlet of Xares, of great architectural and ethnographic value, suffers from regrettable neglect. Part of the range has been proposed as a Site of Community Importance under the Natura 2000 network, although it is damaged by slate (lousa) quarrying and threatened by wind farms, despite which its attractions have encouraged investment in rural tourism.
Activity
A mountain route climbing from the village of Casaio up to the yew wood at 1,350 metres, crossing the mining valleys of the Casoio and offering views of the Trevinca massif, the highest in Galicia.
Curiosity
The discovery of major slate deposits in the 1950s in the valleys of the Casoio and Candís rivers launched an industry that made Valdeorras the largest slate-producing area in Spain.
Curiosity
Wolfram workings opened in the mountains during the Second World War, when the mineral was strategic for the arms industry; today the galleries, the buildings and the spoil heaps remain abandoned.
Monument
A seven-arched bridge over the Sil whose construction began at the end of the 16th century at the place of Sobradelo; for centuries it was one of the unavoidable crossings between Valdeorras and the León lands of El Bierzo.
Monument
A rock shelter with prehistoric paintings in the heights of the municipality, one of the few groups of schematic rock art preserved in the province of Ourense, in the surroundings of the Pena Trevinca massif.
Monument
A megalithic necropolis in the uplands of the municipality, evidence of the occupation of these ranges since late prehistory, in a territory that the Roman road of the Vía Nova would later cross.
Monument
Parish church of Casaio, the hamlet that gives its name to the only yew grove in Galicia; its parish extends over a valley marked later by the slate quarries and the wolfram mines.
Nature
A river that rises at the confluence of the Valborrás and Riodolas rivers, in the Sierra do Eixe, at 1,440 metres above sea level, and runs 19.5 kilometres from south to north, entirely within the concello of Carballeda de Valdeorras, before flowing into the Sil at Sobradelo. It gives its name to the parish of Casoio, and its valley holds both slate quarries, the remains of Roman mining, and the yew grove of Casaio. It is a mountain river with an incised course that opens into small floodplains, such as that of the hermitage of San Cosme y San Damián, where a pilgrimage is held in late September. It historically served for trout fishing and as motive power for mills; in 1971 the Casoio reservoir was completed at Sobradelo, to produce electric power.
Curiosity
Roman gold-mining face opened over the Sil with the ruina montium technique, the same that gave shape to Las Médulas; the name of the place preserves the memory of that mining.
Historical milestone
During the Second World War the mines of Valborraz, in Carballeda de Valdeorras, extracted wolfram destined for the German armaments industry, using Republican prisoners of war for the labor.