Village
Ponteareas is a town in Pontevedra of about 23,000 inhabitants, capital of its municipality, set on the banks of the río Tea. Its name recalls the bridge giving access to the village from the parish of Areas, today known as the bridge of los Remedios or of San Roque; it was officially called Puenteareas in Castilian until 1984, when the Galician form Ponteareas came into use. It is known as the Villa del Corpus and the Villa del Tea. Every Corpus Christi Sunday its residents hand-craft numerous flower carpets that carpet the streets, a festival declared Fiesta de Interés Turístico Internacional (Spain's highest official recognition of a festival's tourist interest) in 2009. The composer Reveriano Soutullo was born here.
Nature
A fortified settlement of elliptical plan measuring about 200 by 120 metres, occupying the summit and western slope of Monte Doce Nome de Xesús, at about 280 metres altitude, in the parish of Pías (Ponteareas). It was inhabited between the 6th-5th centuries BC and the 1st-2nd centuries AD, and retains defensive walls and a large ditch, as well as some thirty buildings of circular, square, elliptical and rectangular plan. It is a Christianised hillfort: in the 18th century the chapel of the Dulce Nombre de Jesús was built on its hilltop. It was excavated from 1927 by Luis Pericot and Florentino López Cuevillas, a campaign in which a petroglyph depicting a snake was found; work resumed between 1981 and 1992. It was declared a Monumento Histórico-Artístico (Monumento Histórico-Artístico, a former Spanish heritage designation, now succeeded by the Bien de Interés Cultural) in 1949 and a Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection) in 2009.
Monument
The church of San Pedro de Angoares is the parish church of this place, in the municipality of Ponteareas (Pontevedra), and the most distinctive Romanesque piece among its twenty-four parishes. It originated in a monastery probably of Visigothic date, on which the present Romanesque church was built in the 12th century, with a Latin-cross plan and a rectangular apse, a solution almost without parallel in Galicia that is repeated only at Santa María de Tera (Zamora). The old Romanesque façade disappeared in a rebuilding of 1900, replaced by a neo-Gothic one of no architectural value. It does, however, retain a notable collection of anthropomorphic and zoomorphic corbels — quadrupeds, bovine heads, one in a meditative pose — and, on the north wall of the apse, a pre-Romanesque band and a slab decorated with interlacing.
Monument
Of the building erected in the early 13th century, only the west doorway survives, with three slightly pointed archivolts on monolithic columns and leaf capitals; the rest was rebuilt in the 18th century, with the addition of a tower and a sacristy. Of the old structure only a few arrow-slits also remain in the south and north walls of the apse. The tympanum of the doorway is plain, and the lintel it supports rests on corbels carved with angels.
Monument
A medieval bridge over the River Tea, also known as the San Roque bridge, from which the town takes its name: Ponteareas is literally the bridge over the sands. Its popular attribution to the Romans is not documented.
Monument
A former manor house, or pazo, of the Sarmiento family, counts of Salvaterra, located at the place of Canedo, parish of San Miguel de Ponteareas (Pontevedra), on the slopes of Monte da Picaraña, which the Franciscan order turned into a convent in 1715. The building, of granite masonry, was raised in the 18th century on the remains of the pazo, of which some walls and the 16th-century main doorway survive, bearing the coats of arms of the Sarmiento and Soutomaior families. The church, of Latin-cross plan and three naves, was completed in 1777, and the cloister, small and plain, between 1784 and 1785. The founding project had already been set in motion in 1603, on the initiative of Diego de Soutomaior Mendoza, son of García Sarmiento, lord of Sobroso and Salvaterra.
Nature
An enormous granite block resting on another rock in an apparently impossible balance, on Monte Picaraña in the parish of Arcos; it is the most photographed formation in a group of boulders shaped by erosion.
Nature
A granite formation on Monte Picaraña linked to the legend of Aldina, daughter of the lord of Sobroso castle, and the young Tristán; tradition has you throw three small stones over your shoulder to learn your romantic future.
Curiosity
Two rock carvings with snake figures were documented at the hillfort of Pías; one remains in situ and the other was moved to the old museum at Pías. Local tradition attributes them to a mythical serpent that lived on the hill.
Curiosity
The zarzuela composer Reveriano Soutullo, born in the town, dedicated the pasodoble Puenteareas to it, today a standard piece in the repertoire of Galician bands; the municipal conservatory and auditorium bear his name.
Activity
Since 1857 local people have covered nearly a kilometre and a half of streets with petals gathered over months, working right through the night before; the celebration was declared a Festival of International Tourist Interest in 2009.
Activity
A circular trail of some seven kilometres, officially approved in 2009 as the PR-G 120, which climbs from the parish of Arcos to the top of Monte Picaraña linking boulders such as the Penedo dos Sombreiros, the Penedo do Equilibrio and Os Namorados.
Monument
The parish church of Cumiar, to the east of the concello of Ponteareas, next to Mondariz, is one of the Romanesque-rooted temples preserved in the municipality, together with those of San Salvador de Padróns and San Pedro de Angoares. One inscription places its original construction in the 12th century, while another dates the west doorway to 1184; the building has been much altered, but retains that doorway, with two pointed archivolts with a sharp edge on columns with simple plant-motif capitals, and the triumphal arch, semicircular though irregular due to some later reconstruction, resting on columns with very worn capitals. On one of the walls is preserved the carving of a very schematic lion, with its four legs folded forward.
Monument
A medieval bridge in Ponteareas which, together with that of Os Remedios, crossed the río Tea on the road to the fairs; its name alludes to the division of jurisdictions that met at this point in the Condado. It stands at the place of Urcela, parish of Moreira, and although some authors attribute it a Roman origin, it retains almost exclusively medieval forms, with reworkings from the 14th and 15th centuries. It has a ramped deck 41 metres long and 4 wide, with four ashlar granite arches of different diameter, the central one being the largest; the two central arches are pointed and the side ones retain the original round arch. It formed part of the road that linked Tuy with Ponteareas and from there with the road from Baiona to Ribadavia. It remains open to traffic after its last restoration, in 2005.
Nature
A river beach and recreation area on the río Tea as it passes through Ponteareas, with a broad sandy stretch and several coves formed upstream of a small weir; it is one of the busiest river bathing spots in the Condado.
Nature
A fortified Iron Age enclosure located next to the río Tea, in the parish of Ribadetea (Ponteareas), about which it has been debated whether it was a settlement or a gold-mining operation, given its proximity to the mina da Croa. Notable are the numerous parapets and ditches that surround it, affected in 2013 by sand-extraction works that ended in a fine for the town council. It shares its concello with Troña, one of the main hillfort sites in Galicia.
Activity
A concert hall in Ponteareas that bears the name of the local zarzuela composer, author of the famous pasodoble dedicated to the town; it shares its programme with the municipal conservatory of music.
Activity
A riverside path that starts at the medieval bridge of Os Remedios, in Ponteareas, and descends along the bank of the Tea to the bridge of Fillaboa, already in the municipal district of Salvaterra, among alder groves and old mills.
Historical milestone
The town obtained a royal privilege to hold a fair once a month, a right that fixed its role as the comarca's market at the crossroads of the Tea and explains the layout of its medieval bridges.
Food and drink
One of the five subzones of the Rías Baixas designation, extending across the slopes of the Tea and the Miño; to the whites of albariño and treixadura it adds reds of espadeiro and sousón uncommon in Galicia.