Logbook · 9 places

What to see and do in Moraña

What to see and do in Moraña (Caldas, Pontevedra): 9 places across monuments, nature, activities and curiosities, with a photo and a Google Maps location.

1 Villages · 3 Monuments · 1 Nature · 3 Activities · 1 Curiosities

How far each place is from the centre of Moraña

Towns near Moraña

What to see in Portas 5.9 km · 11 places
What to see in Caldas de Reis 6.2 km · 11 places
What to see in Barro 6.6 km · 6 places
What to see in Campo Lameiro 6.8 km · 6 places
What to see in Cuntis 8.3 km · 11 places
What to see in Cerdedo Cotobade 13 km · 12 places
What to see in Vilagarcía de Arousa 13 km · 10 places
What to see in Meis 13 km · 8 places

Spain › Galicia › Pontevedra › Caldas › Moraña

What to see and do in Moraña

Moraña
Village
Moraña is a concello of about 4,100 inhabitants in the comarca of Caldas, in the province of Pontevedra, spread across nine parishes between the coastal plain and the province's highlands. Its coat of arms bears the Lapa de Gargantáns, a Neolithic menhir 1.92 metres tall covered in cup marks, dated to between 3000 and 2000 BC. It preserves two heavily altered 12th-century churches, that of San Martiño de Gargantáns and that of San Pedro de Rebón, both with Romanesque apses and carved capitals, and in the parish of Amil the neoclassical sanctuary of Nuestra Señora de los Milagros, reached by a monumental granite stairway. On the last Sunday of July, the carballeira of Santa Lucía hosts the Festa do Carneiro ao Espeto, declared de interés turístico gallego (a Galician regional tourism-interest designation for festivals).
Slab of Gargantáns
Monument
A menhir 235 centimetres in total height, of which 192 are visible, discovered in 1958 by the schoolteacher Carlos Paratcha, the first to be attributed without dispute to Galician prehistoric megalithism; it is dated between the fourth and the middle of the third millennium BC. Conical in shape with a square base, now cut, it retains about twenty engraved cup-marks along with angular marks and two winding lines, whose purpose is unknown: it has been linked to funerary or religious signs, or to ancient boundaries between tribes, and it served as a boundary marker between the parishes of Gargantáns and Santa Xusta de Moraña. It is the main element of the municipality's coat of arms, and nearby, next to the Romanesque church of San Martiño de Gargantáns, stand the much-faded remains of the castro de Paraños.
Church of San Martiño de Gargantáns
Monument
A twelfth-century Romanesque church, one of the oldest buildings in the municipality of Moraña, which retains its original apse. It stands in the parish of Gargantáns, next to the menhir of the Lapa, a stone almost two metres tall dated between 3000 and 2000 BC, whose base appears to have been cut, suggesting that it was moved, and whose surface shows several carved cup-marks; the stone went on to give the municipality the emblem of its coat of arms.
Palace of a Buzaca
Monument
A manor house founded by the Varela family in the 18th century, one of the grandest pazos in the municipality; the same owners built the pazo of San Roque, at Rebón, and in 1901 that of A Toxeiriña was added to them.
Viewpoint of o Monte Acibal
Nature
A balcony on the hill where the boundaries of Moraña, Pontevedra, Barro and Campo Lameiro meet, with views of the Pontevedra and Arousa estuaries; the baixa das bestas is held nearby every July.
Rapa das Bestas of Amil
Activity
The Rapa das Bestas de Amil is part of the Galician tradition of the curros, in which horses that graze freely are rounded up from the mountain in the preceding days to gather them and bring them, already in a herd, to the enclosure where the rapa is held. There the foals are separated so that they are not harmed, each horse is held still by several people and de-wormed, its wounds are treated and its mane and tail are cut, before it is returned to the mountain. In Amil this takes place on the second Sunday of July, the week after the rapa of Sabucedo, when locals bring the horses down from Monte Acibal to shear and mark them by hand; the festival is declared de interés turístico nacional (Spain's official designation for festivals of special national tourist interest).
Amil Curro
Activity
A rapa das bestas in which the horses that live free on the hills are brought down to the enclosure of Amil to have their manes cut by hand; it is one of the oldest and busiest curros in Galicia.
Festival of a Carne ó Caldeiro
Activity
A gastronomic event around beef boiled in great cauldrons and dressed with oil, paprika and salt, served on cachelos; it is declared a festival of tourist interest of Galicia.
The Lapa of Gargantáns
Curiosity
The Lapa de Gargantáns is a Neolithic menhir located in the parish of Gargantáns, in the municipality of Moraña (Pontevedra), discovered in 1958 and raised by archaeologists from the Museum of Pontevedra. It has a visible height of 192 centimetres, out of a total of 235, and a diameter of around 50 centimetres, with a conical shape and a cut square base; on its surface about twenty cup marks are preserved, engraved along with angle-shaped marks and two winding lines. It is one of the few engraved menhirs in Galicia, and is thought to have served as a boundary stone between the parishes of Gargantáns and Santa Xusta de Moraña. It is so identified with the concello that it appears on its coat of arms.