Village
Tomiño is a concello in the Lower Miño comarca, in the province of Pontevedra, situated on the riverbank facing Portugal and divided into sixteen parishes, with about 13,700 inhabitants. The comarca has documented human presence going back more than 200,000 years, with Palaeolithic remains, burial mounds, petroglyphs and castrexo settlements, and it experienced five centuries of Roman rule before the Germanic period that gave way to the Middle Ages; at that time the nearby episcopal see of Tuy and monasteries such as that of Oia became major ecclesiastical lordships, while Tomiño remained linked to the monasteries of Barrantes and Santa María. Clashes with Portugal during its 17th-century struggle for independence left the territory marked by a border character and numerous fortifications. Kiwi fruit and cut flowers have taken root in its orchards, and it preserves the 17th-century Towers of Goián and the medieval churches of Santa María de Tomiño and San Salvador de Tebra.
Monument
A bridge over the Minho river linking the Galician concello of Tomiño with the Portuguese one of Vila Nova de Cerveira; on the Galician side it connects with the PO-552 road and the CG-4.2 at the Goián roundabout. Work began in June 2002 with a budget of 6,460,613.92 euros, financed equally by the Xunta de Galicia and the Portuguese government, and the bridge was inaugurated on 10 June 2004. Its opening allowed vehicles and people to cross without using the ferries that had linked Goián and Vila Nova de Cerveira, whose service ceased shortly afterwards; only the ferry linking A Guarda with Caminha remains in operation.
Monument
A 17th-century fortification built on the bank of the Miño, in the parish of Goián, to watch over the border with Portugal; its bastioned remains look straight across at the Portuguese town of Vila Nova de Cerveira.
Monument
The Sanctuary of San Campio de Figueiró, in Tomiño, was built in 1804 on an earlier chapel dedicated to St Anthony of Padua, was rebuilt between 1871 and 1874 and renovated in 1993. It honours San Campio, a Roman soldier martyred in the year 306 together with his wife Arquelaida and their three children, and daily draws pilgrims from all over Galicia and northern Portugal who arrive on foot from far away, hence he is also known as San Campio de Lonxe or do Monte. He is invoked against all kinds of illnesses, especially cancer and rheumatic or nervous ailments, and it is traditional to offer him wax ex-votos or to make a pledge in wheat, rye or salt by weighing oneself on an old hanging scale. Having been a soldier, he is also held to be the patron of young men leaving for military service.
Nature
A mountain range that frames the municipality to the west and separates it from the Atlantic coast; its scrub-covered slopes preserve burial mounds and rock carvings, and from its heights the whole Miño floodplain is in view.
Nature
A border stretch of the river opposite Vila Nova de Cerveira where lamprey and shad are still caught with traditional gear; the bank, full of reed beds and river islands, forms part of the protected area of the Baixo Miño.
Curiosity
Until 2004 the crossing to Portugal was made on the boats that linked Goián with Vila Nova de Cerveira; the opening of the bridge over the Miño put an end within a few months to a ferry service that had run for generations.
Monument
A Baroque fortified house in Goián whose history is bound to the Portuguese War of Restoration: it served a defensive function at a strategic point on the border of the Miño, beside the towers of the same place.
Monument
A seigneurial house of the parish of Tebra, in the interior of Tomiño, included in the inventory of pazos of the Xunta de Galicia; its setting of vineyard and soutos illustrates the agrarian economy of the comarca.
Monument
A twelfth-century parish church in Tebra, one of the two Romanesque churches of Tomiño together with Santa María; it stands in the same valley over which the rock art ensemble of the Monte Tetón extends.
Curiosity
The petroglyphs of monte Tetón are concentrated on two large surfaces of granite rock about 300 metres apart, within the parish of Tebra, in the municipality of Tomiño, although the mountain, almost 500 metres high, is also shared with Tuy and Gondomar. They comprise nearly two hundred carvings from the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age, including concentric circles, cup-marks, quadrangular figures that have been interpreted as a rudimentary cartographic representation, mounting scenes and human figures. Notable is the so-called Real Seco, possibly the largest circular labyrinth in Europe, with eighteen concentric rings up to 3.5 metres across. The complex, known as the Ecoparque Arqueolóxico do Monte Tetón, is covered by a five-kilometre circular route with views over the Val Miñor and the Baixo Miño.
Curiosity
A stone cross raised beside the Miño in Goián and dated 1557, considered the earliest dated cruceiro so far located in Galicia; it marked the crossing point of the boats towards Portugal.
Activity
A night of traditional music and dance that the festival committee of the parish of Piñeiro holds in Tomiño, with pandereteiras, bagpipes and an open foliada, reviving the model of the old neighbourhood gatherings.
Historical milestone
After the military coup of 18 July 1936, the mayor of Tomiño was arrested and sentenced to death; the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, in a frontier concello where the repression was especially harsh.