Village
A Gudiña is a town of about 1,200 inhabitants situated at 979 metres altitude, at the south-eastern tip of the province of Orense and of Galicia, in the comarca of Viana, bordering Portugal and close to the province of Zamora, in an area of very harsh winters known as Terra de Frieiras. Through it pass the conventional Zamora-La Coruña railway line, whose station was inaugurated in 1957, and since 2021 the Olmedo-Zamora-Galicia high-speed line, with a stop at La Gudiña-Porta de Galicia. It is here that the Camino de Santiago along the Vía de la Plata splits towards Verín or towards Laza. In 1506, Philip the Handsome and Joanna stayed in the town and granted it a coat of arms, and the missionary Sebastián de Aparicio was born there.
Monument
A parish church of the 17th and 18th centuries raised beside the Camino Sanabrés, with Baroque altarpieces and an image of Blessed Sebastián de Aparicio, a native of the town; its interior preserves the plainness of the rural Romanesque.
Monument
A small church of granite ashlar of the 17th and 18th centuries, with a central belfry holding two bells; its existence alongside San Martiño is explained by the fact that the municipality was divided between the dioceses of Astorga and Ourense.
Nature
A pre-Roman granite funerary stela found in 1992 at the spot known as Cabeza do Cichón, 235 centimetres long and 63 centimetres at its widest, with a motif carved in relief on one of its faces.
Nature
A pre-Roman fortified settlement set above the valley of the River Ribeira; its position commands one of the natural passes between the Galician uplands and the Zamoran comarca of Sanabria.
Nature
Prehistoric burial mounds spread across the flat ground of the municipality's ranges, documented in the archaeological inventory alongside the menhir of Tameirón as evidence of megalithic settlement.
Curiosity
A gallery some twenty-five metres long and four wide dug by the Romans to divert the River Pentes and leave dry a meander in which they were prospecting for gold and tin; it survives beside the hamlet of Barxa.
Curiosity
A tin and wolfram working of Roman origin brought back into use in the 20th century, with a central chamber from which several galleries run; today it is flooded and is the chief testimony to the municipality's mining past.
Curiosity
Five houses of stone and brick built in the 1940s and 1950s to accommodate the workers on the Ourense-Madrid railway line; abandoned today, they recall the boom the train brought to these hamlets.
Curiosity
A communal wolf trap on the boundary between A Gudiña and Riós, with converging walls that led to the pit; it is signposted with interpretive panels and included in a walking route through the range.
Curiosity
Roman milestones found along the line of the road that served the municipality's mine workings; the pieces are today kept in the Provincial Archaeological Museum of Ourense.
Curiosity
Sebastián de Aparicio was born here on 20 January 1502, opened the first cart roads of New Spain and died at almost a hundred in Puebla; A Gudiña is twinned with the Mexican city in his memory.
Curiosity
In the town square the Camino Sanabrés divides into two branches: one goes on by way of Laza, shorter and more mountainous, and the other by way of Verín, some thirty kilometres longer but easier going for anyone travelling by bicycle.
Curiosity
A high-speed rail station located in La Gudiña, in the province of Ourense, with long-distance services. The name Porta de Galicia refers to its position at the line's entrance into Galicia, being the first station in Galician territory, and also serves to distinguish it from the La Gudiña station on the conventional line. It stands at kilometre point 382.613 of the high-speed line linking Olmedo with Galicia, between the Sanabria AV and Ourense stations. Inaugurated by Felipe VI on 20 December 2021, when the Sanabria-Ourense section entered service, it was built expressly to provide rail service to this mountain comarca. In April 2023 a footpath of about 100 metres was opened to give passengers access from the town of La Gudiña.
Curiosity
The town was granted royal arms after housing Felipe I and Queen Juana in 1506 during their journey through the north-west of the peninsula; the episode was recorded in the municipality's historical documents.
Nature
A deeply cut valley in the south-east of the municipality, with a drop of some four hundred metres from the hamlet of Barxa down to the riverbed; at its bottom the Roman tunnel and the old tin mines survive.
Nature
A mountain pass in the parish of O Canizo listed by the Xunta as a natural resource associated with the Camino de Santiago; its heaths and high pastures open up broad panoramas over the ranges along the border.
Nature
A bathing spot laid out on the banks of the River Ribeira, some three kilometres from the town centre, with a recreation area; it is almost the only accessible stretch of water in a municipality of 171 square kilometres of mountain.