Village
Covelo is a mountainous municipality of Pontevedra's Paradanta, with about 2,500 inhabitants spread across fourteen parishes. Its territory, furrowed by the Tea river and its tributaries, rises between the sierra del Suído to the north and the Montes de Paradanta to the south, with heights reaching 1,151 metres at the Faro de Avión; the village stands at 376 metres. Its valleys preserve well-kept native woodland, and in the parish of Campo a foxo do lobo was restored, a funnel-shaped trap once used to hunt wolves, next to stone huts used by shepherds. Its heritage also includes the ruins of the Romanesque monastery of Santo Estevo de Casteláns, from the late 12th century, and the Casa Museo Etnográfico Pazo Da Cruz, with farming tools and old trades.
Monument
A single-arch stone bridge crossing the River Tea in the parish of Fofe, part of an old cobbled road; it is one of the historic crossings of the upper Tea along with that of Portafurada, over the River Caraño.
Monument
A bridge of medieval origin over the River Caraño accompanied by a group of restored watermills, evidence of the water power that sustained the economy of these mountain parishes for centuries.
Monument
A cross carved in 1899 by the stonemason José Cerviño García, also known as the Santísimo Cristo dos Aflixidos; it stands in the town's central square and is considered one of the finest in Galicia.
Monument
Monastic ruins preserved in the parish of Casteláns, one of the few traces of monastic life in the uplands of the Tea, in a municipality divided into fourteen mountain parishes.
Monument
The chozos do Suído are dry-stone gneiss constructions with a square floor plan of about twenty square metres, walls up to 0.8 metres thick and a gabled roof supported by one to three round arches, topped with slabs, earth and moss to insulate the interior; inside they preserve a hearth (lareira), an oven and cupboards, and a small opening lets smoke out and sunlight in. Probably built from the 12th century onwards by the shepherds of Avión, Beariz, A Lama, Fornelos de Montes, Ribadavia and Covelo, they stand at about 900 metres of altitude, on south-facing slopes sheltered from the north winds, and were in use until the last century between June and September, when livestock climbed to the sesteiros of the brañas of the Suído. Alongside them cortellos and stone curros are also preserved.
Monument
A hermitage at 499 metres inside the Serra do Suído, beside a bridge over the River Caraño; it stands on earlier remains and its surroundings take in the sierras that close off the municipality.
Nature
The Alto do Faro de Avión, at 1,151 metres above sea level, is the highest point of the municipality of Covelo and one of the highest elevations in the province of Pontevedra; from its summit the three sierras among which the municipality is divided can be seen: the Suído, the Faro de Avión and the Paradanta. It is part of a mountain alignment that also extends through the Ourense municipalities of Melón, Avión and Carballeda de Avia, separated from the sierra del Suído by the Tea and Avia rivers, with remains of peat bogs, centuries-old carballeiras (oak groves) such as those of Prado and Avión, and traces of an old glacier. It is a breeding area for wolves and habitat for the golden eagle and the eagle owl, although it lacks legal protection and is affected by the wind farms installed on its peaks.
Nature
Massif that forms the border between the provinces of Pontevedra and Ourense, with the Pontevedra municipalities of A Lama, Fornelos de Montes and Covelo on its western slope. It reaches 1,059 metres at the Sesta Cerrada, and there the Tea, Oitavén and Verdugo rivers rise towards the west and the Avia towards the east, descending in waterfalls such as those of Mouriscados or Verducido. It is one of the rainiest areas of Galicia, with peat bogs and heathland on the peaks, a stable presence of wolves and golden eagles, and fragas (woods) of carballos (oaks), loureiros (laurels) and sobreiras (cork oaks) on the middle slopes, where shepherd's chozos (huts) and wolf pits used for centuries by the shepherds of the nearby villages are still preserved. It is crossed by an old path, a Verea, which linked Beariz with Pontevedra via the Portela da Cruz.
Nature
A fall formed by the River Tea as it passes through the parish of San Salvador de Prado, accompanied by a succession of natural pools cut into the rock; it is reached from the Abuiña bridge along the riverbank.
Nature
A waterfall with a drop of more than twenty-five metres formed by the Ponte Piñeiro stream as it crosses the municipality, with several smaller falls strung out downstream of the bridge and of the hermitage of the Virxe da Guía.
Nature
A river beach on the Tea, at the place of Maceira, with a recreational area and a waterfall nearby; it is one of the busiest river bathing spots in the interior of the province of Pontevedra.
Curiosity
Communal wolf trap recovered and restored in 2013 in the parish of Campo: two long funnel-shaped walls led the animal to a pit two metres deep from which it could no longer get out.
Curiosity
Poldras, lines of stone slabs laid in the bed of the River Tea, which allowed it to be crossed on foot before there were bridges; two sets survive, at Lourido and in the parish of Casteláns.
Curiosity
A water-powered sawmill, now restored, on one of the old muleteers' roads that crossed the mountains; it is a reminder that these parishes lived for centuries from timber and from the common woodland.
Nature
The Tea rises from the confluence of two branches that come down from the Suído mountain range and the Faro de Avión, on the border between Orense and Pontevedra, and runs some 50 kilometres as a tributary of the Miño, crossing the municipalities of Covelo, Mondariz, Mondariz-Balneario, Puenteareas and Salvatierra de Miño. Included in the Natura Network since 2000 and declared a site of Community importance in 2001, it comes down hemmed in from the mountains, opens out into the Mondariz valley and shelters salmon, trout, lampreys, eels and otters, which makes it one of the best trout and salmon stretches in southern Galicia; its banks and river beaches, such as those of Maceira or A Freixa, mark out the landscape running through the territory of Covelo.
Monument
The parish church of the municipal capital, with a cruceiro set in its atrium, presiding over a mountain municipality spread among stone hamlets between the Tea valley and the slopes of the sierra do Suído.
Curiosity
Beside the road a cruceiro and a peto de ánimas are preserved, the small niche where the residents left alms for the souls in purgatory, a devotion deeply rooted in the parishes of A Paradanta.
Activity
A mountain trail linking several of these shepherds' huts scattered across the sierra's brañas, running between stone walls, springs and channels that distributed the water of the pastures. The chozos, built of gneiss stone with walls up to 0.8 metres thick and covered with a double-pitched roof of stone slabs and a layer of earth and insulating moss, rest on round arches and stand at around 900 metres of altitude, facing south to shelter from the cold northern winds; inside they still have a lareira, an oven and wall cupboards. Probably of medieval origin, they were built and used until the last century by the shepherds of the concellos of Avión, Beariz, A Lama, Fornelos de Montes, Ribadavia and Covelo, who took their livestock up to graze between June and September.
Activity
The concello devotes its gastronomic festival to meat grilled over embers, the churrasco of beef and pork ribs cooked over vine shoots and oak wood and accompanied with potatoes and local bread.
Monument
Raised by the residents in 1817 in the parish of San Salvador de Prado, it is the highest chapel in the province of Pontevedra, a step from the Faro de Avión; behind it is a tomb carved into the rock that tradition holds to be miraculous.
Nature
The rego da Fonteira clears, beside the hamlet of Salcedo, in the parish of A Graña, a rock wall of some twenty metres; it is one of the highest falls in the concello and only comes down strongly after the winter rains.