Village
Cambados, the capital of albariño, is a municipality in the Salnés district, in the centre of the Rías Baixas of Pontevedra, on the shore of the ria of Arousa, with around 13,900 inhabitants spread across 45 population centres. In 2017 it was chosen European City of Wine. There are traces of settlement predating our era on its hills and riverbanks; the Phoenicians explored this coast in search of copper and tin, and the tower of Lobeira, next to the mouth of the Umia, served as a lighthouse for their navigation while the salt pans of the area were worked. Its praza de Fefiñáns, presided over by a 17th-century pazo, hosts the Festa do Albariño every August, of national tourist interest, and in Santa Mariña Dozo stand the Gothic ruins of its old church.
Monument
An L-shaped palace built in the 16th century by Juan Sarmiento Valladares, a counsellor to Felipe II, and enlarged in the 17th by Viscount Gonzalo de Valladares; its battlemented tower presides over the arcaded square of Fefiñáns and it now houses albariño wineries.
Monument
A 15th-century Gothic seafarers' church promoted by the Ulloa family on the site of an earlier Romanesque church; roofless and abandoned since the 19th century, its arcades today shelter the parish cemetery, and it has been a Monumento Histórico-Artístico since 1943. It stands at the foot of Monte da Pastora, next to an old hillfort; it was begun by Lope Sánchez de Ulloa and finished and enlarged by his daughter María de Ulloa, lady of Cambados and mother of Alonso III de Fonseca. It preserves the plan of a single nave measuring 24 by 11.4 metres, four transverse arches, the apse and five side chapels, decorated with reliefs of the Incarnation, Christ and the apostles. The ribbed vault of the apse forms a four-pointed star with a sun at the keystone, and deteriorated remains of 16th-century wall paintings can still be made out.
Monument
The remains of a tower built on an islet joined to the mainland facing the Cambados seafront, built as a residence for the female descendants of Sueiro Gómez de Soutomaior, lord of the town and port of San Tomé; it is one of the town's emblems and was declared a Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection). It has been speculated that it was raised in the 10th century as a watchtower against Norman attacks, but its style and decoration point rather to the late 15th or early 16th century; it is also false that it was destroyed in the Irmandiño revolts, since it did not yet exist at that time. Today only two walls of the original three storeys survive, with a window and the remains of a chimney, and recent excavations found traces of a chapel dedicated to San Sadurniño and San Tomé, which gave the islet its name.
Monument
A manor house of the first half of the 17th century, with a coat of arms and a chapel, in the old town of Cambados; restored by the State, it has worked for decades as a Parador de Turismo in the very heart of the Salnés.
Activity
The Festa do Albariño, the oldest of Galicia's wine festivals and the second oldest in Spain, was born in 1953 out of a challenge between the growers Bernardino Quintanilla and Ernesto Zárate to decide which of the two had the best albariño from the 1952 harvest. It is held in Cambados during the week of the first Sunday in August and gathers around 150,000 people each year around musical performances, exhibitions and a collective wine tasting. The festival also has an official act: the procession of the Capítulo Serenísimo del Albariño to the Pazo de Fefiñáns, where the Ladies and Gentlemen of Honour are named and the award-winning albariños from the tasting competition are announced. Declared a Festival of National Tourist Interest, it has been one of International Tourist Interest since 2018.
Monument
A church that closes the plaza of Fefiñáns to the north, opposite the pazo of the same name; its tower and its Renaissance doorway form the backdrop of the most photographed monumental ensemble in Cambados.
Curiosity
A mill that used the flow of the tide to turn its stones, set in the inlet of A Seca; recovered as a museum space, it illustrates a technology almost vanished from the Galician coast.
Monument
The birthplace of the poet of the Rexurdimento, open to the public in Cambados; it preserves his library and personal objects of the author who was called the poeta da raza and sang of the sea of Arousa.
Historical milestone
Ferdinand II granted Cambados in 1170 the status of a most royal town, a privilege that consolidated its role as port and market on the eastern shore of the ría de Arousa against the power of the local lords.
Activity
A September event devoted to the scallop, the mollusc whose shell identifies the Jacobean pilgrim; in Cambados it is served griddled with onion and ham, accompanied by albariño from the comarca.