Village
As Neves is a concello of about 3,650 inhabitants situated in the south of the comarca of Condado, on the banks of the Miño, which here forms the border with Portugal, between the valleys of the Xuliana and the Termes. Until 1904 it was called Setados, with its capital in the parish of Santa Eugenia de Setados, and from then until 1981 it was officially known as Nieves; in the mid-19th century, when it was still called Setados, it had 5,620 inhabitants. Every 29 July, the parish of San José de Ribarteme holds the romería of Santa Marta, in which penitents are carried in coffins during the procession accompanying the images of the saint, Saint Benedict and Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Its 17th-century church displays a stepped pyramidal tower, one of only five preserved in Galicia.
Monument
A church on a Latin-cross plan built in 1668 by the architect Melchor de Velasco and the stonemason Amaro do Campo; its stepped pyramidal tower is an almost unique solution in Galicia, related to those of the cloister of Santiago cathedral.
Nature
The castro de Altamira, also called the castro de Taboexa, stands next to the place of Altamira, in the parish of Taboexa, municipality of As Neves. It is a castro settlement on a hill 328 metres high, inhabited between the 5th century BC and the 1st century AD, today much altered by quarries and by the forestry use of the land. It has yielded a notable collection of bronze objects kept in the Museo de Pontevedra, among them a small figure of Mercury, several togate figures and fragments of statuary, finds that suggest the existence of a foundry workshop of some importance. On the rocky outcrops of its summit several rock carvings are also preserved. The site, known as the Gravado Rupestre Citania de Altamira, was declared a Monumento Histórico-Artístico (Monumento Histórico-Artístico, a former Spanish heritage designation, now succeeded by the Bien de Interés Cultural) in 1974.
Monument
A single-arch bridge over the River Termes, in the parish of Santiago de Ribarteme; it is often catalogued as Roman, but its fabric is of the 12th century and was rebuilt in the 18th, and it is in good condition today.
Nature
A summit of about 690 metres, the highest point in the municipality of As Neves, between the parishes of San Xosé de Ribarteme and Taboexa, on whose slopes a large granite slab is preserved, carved with anthropomorphic figures and more than twenty zoomorphic representations. On its summit stands a simple single-nave chapel dedicated to San Mamede, whose feast day, every 7 August, gives rise to a pilgrimage attended by people from across the district. Local tradition preserves several legends linked to the mountain, among them that of a golden ox brought there by the Moors, said to remain buried beneath a slab known as a Laxe Negra, which no one dares move for fear that the sea would flood the nearby villages.
Nature
For some ten kilometres the Miño marks the southern boundary of the municipality and the border with Portugal, between riverside groves and the old stone pesqueiras built out into the channel to catch lamprey and salmon.
Activity
The pilgrimage of Santa Marta de Ribarteme, known as the Pilgrimage of the Dead, is held every 29 July in the parish of San José de Ribarteme, in As Neves, and has been documented since 1700, although its medieval origins are said to go back to monks and noblemen who, on their way back from the Crusades, made a pilgrimage along the camiño dos frades. The original chapel was replaced in 1805 by the sanctuary of Santa Marta, patroness of those raised from the dead. The day combines masses from seven in the morning with a procession that sets out at midday: those who have survived a serious illness parade in open coffins, the cadaleitos, carried by their relatives, to thank the saint for their recovered life. It is declared a Fiesta de Interés Turístico de Galicia (a designation for events of touristic interest in Galicia).
Activity
A fair devoted to requeixo, the traditional fresh cheese of the comarca, and to local honey; it is held in the town every Good Friday and Holy Saturday and is declared a Festival of Tourist Interest in Galicia.
Monument
A medieval church of Romanesque design in the parish of Santiago de Ribarteme, in As Neves; it is the setting of the procession in which the devout who have survived a mortal danger parade in a coffin.
Monument
The Baroque parish church of Tortoreos, in As Neves, one of the thirteen parishes of the concello; with the church of the municipal capital it forms the most outstanding Baroque ensemble of this stretch of the Condado.
Nature
A mountain range that closes off As Neves to the north and gives its name to the neighbouring comarca of A Paradanta, with the monte de San Nomedio as the main peak in the municipality, although the highest point of the whole range, the monte Paradanta at 954 metres, rises in the neighbouring concello of A Caniza. It separates the basin of the Miño from that of the Tea amid brañas and mountain scrub. On the last Sunday of August the curro da Paradanta is held on its heights, a traditional day of livestock handling, and on the range the Romaría da Franqueira also takes place, one of the most well-attended in the comarca.
Nature
A course that drains the western sector of As Neves from the montes da Paradanta to the Miño, set in a valley of terraced slopes where the traditional vineyard of the Condado do Tea is maintained.
Nature
A Galician river that runs through the Pontevedra concello of As Neves, a right-bank tributary of the Miño and part of the special conservation area of the Baixo Miño. It rises in the montes da Paradanta, in the nevesa parish of Cerdeira, at an altitude of about 803 metres, and along its 9-kilometre course crosses, besides Cerdeira, the parishes of San Xosé de Ribarteme, San Cibrán de Ribarteme and Santiago de Ribarteme, where a bridge of Roman masonry crosses it, before flowing into the Miño, forming the border between Vide and Setados. Its banks retain alder groves and old communal flour mills.
Nature
A castro settlement of the parish of San Pedro de Batalláns, one of several in the concello together with Bocas, in San Xosé de Ribarteme, and the well-known enclosure of Altamira, in Taboexa.
Curiosity
A rock with prehistoric traces in the parish of Taboexa whose name refers to the mouras of Galician mythology; on the same hill lithic pieces, tumuli and rock carvings have appeared.
Historical milestone
Around 1470, at the end of the Irmandiño revolt, Pedro Madruga, Count of Camiña, returned from Portugal via the ford of the Miño at As Neves to put down the last flare-ups of the uprising, forcibly restoring feudal rule in the Condado.
Activity
An event held in August in the main square of As Neves and devoted to the reds of the Rías Baixas designation, made from local varieties such as espadeiro, sousón and caíño tinto.