Village
Nigrán is a coastal municipality of around 18,000 inhabitants in the Vigo district, province of Pontevedra, which forms part of the natural district of Val Miñor together with Baiona and Gondomar. Shielded from extreme temperatures by the surrounding mountains, and with an ocean already calmed after striking the Cíes islands, it brings together several beaches: the América or Lourido beach, blue-flagged and 1,200 metres long; Panjón beach, 1,100 metres; Patos beach, 1,500 metres and popular for surfing and bodyboarding; and As Canas beach. Next to Madorra beach stretches the Monteferro peninsula. In Panxón, the Templo Votivo do Mar and a Visigothic arch from the original church are preserved.
Monument
A granite church built in Panxón (Nigrán) between 1932 and 1937 by the architect Antonio Palacios, from O Porriño -also the author of the Palacio de Comunicaciones and the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid- as an ex-voto of sailors, also known as the parish church of San Juan de Panjón. It blends Neo-Gothic style with Mudéjar and Byzantine echoes and Modernisme; its ribbed dome draws inspiration from the monastery of Armenteira, and its free-standing tower ends in a compass rose with four guardian angels. Built partly with recycled materials, next to the church stands a 7th-century Visigothic arch, from the old church, which is also the source of the image of Saint John the Baptist that the church houses today.
Monument
The Ramallosa bridge, in late Romanesque style, crosses the river Miñor between the parishes of San Pedro da Ramallosa (Nigrán) and Santa Cristina da Ramallosa (Baiona). According to tradition, it was ordered built in the 13th century by Pedro González Telmo, bishop of Tui, after the founding of Baiona by Alfonso IX in 1201, perhaps over an earlier bridge on a Roman road. It is 36 metres long with ten arches, some pointed and others round, with triangular cutwaters on both sides forming passing bays at road level, paved with irregular flagstones. On a central pier there is a small altar with a wayside cross showing the image of Saint Telmo, patron of sailors, and souls burning in purgatory; fertility rites, known as the early baptism, used to be held beside the bridge.
Monument
A twenty-five-metre granite mass erected on top of Monteferro by Manuel Gómez Román and inaugurated in 1924, although the work was not finished until 1928, in memory of those who died at sea; the idea came from the British consul Arthur Nightingale after the First World War, who had proposed raising it on the Cíes Islands in memory of the Spanish merchant sailors who fell in the conflict. Miguel Primo de Rivera took part in the laying of the first stone. It bears the inscription Salve Regina Marium and, above the portico, a marble sculpture of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, patroness of sailors, the work of Enrique Marín Higuero, topped by four bronze crowns.
Nature
A Pontevedra archipelago facing the Monteferro peninsula, in Panxón, Nigrán, with well-preserved seabeds and colonies of birds of interest which led to its being declared a special conservation area in 2014. It is made up of two main islands -Estela de Terra, 29 metres high and 9.6 hectares, and Estela de Fóra, 20 metres and 7 hectares- besides the Serralleiras islets and other smaller rocks, all of rock covered with coastal scrub, some shrubs and low trees of mixed woodland. Among the birds present are the sandwich tern and the common tern, and migratory species such as the great cormorant or the yellow-legged gull; around the islands there is a shellfish bank.
Nature
América beach, originally called Lourido beach or Area Loura for the colour of its sand, stretches for 1,700 metres in the parish of San Pedro da Ramallosa, in Nigrán, bordering on Panxón beach, from which it is separated by the river Muíños. From the 1930s onwards the name América beach became established, taken from the Hotel América and the first housing development built on the spot, until it completely displaced the original place name. It is lined by the coastal promenade and the summer villas built by the indianos in the early 20th century.
Nature
Monteferro is a rocky, pine-covered peninsula that separates the beaches of Panxón and América, with open views to the Cíes Islands. América beach, whose original name was Lourido beach or Area Loura beach, after the colour of its sand, took its current name in the 1930s with the building of the Hotel América and the area's first development; at 1,700 metres long, it is one of the longest and most sheltered beaches of the Vigo estuary, and it borders Panxón beach, from which it is separated by the Muíños river.