Aos Pés Do Larouco
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Orthostate Megaliths Stone cover Funerary Tumular chamber The Village of Cualedro mass 41.990305, -7.594142 The most renowned element of the municipality’s ca- pital is the church that dates back to the XVII Century and is situated at the top of the village, where they no O Madorriño longer perform acts of worship. 41.928477, -7.612283 Aos pés do Larouco Constructed as a single rectangular nave and Madorriño is diminutive of medorra or madorra (of Miliarios de Lamas covered with a ceramic tiled gabled roof, four in the the lat. meta, conical heap), a voice used throughout 41.982239, -7.540390 presbyter, was built with masonry dry stone walls. Galicia to refer to the burial mounds built during the This concerns two milestones without epigraphy - The facade is topped with a belfry that houses two Neolithic period and also part of the Bronze Age as without engraved information - which form part of bells. Facing this is a beautiful double spouted water collective burial chambers. The Lama of A Saceda the secondary roman road that connects the great fountain and a wash place that has, as a main featu- The medorra is an isolated funeral monument 41.929773, -7.631330 roman city of Chaves (Portugal) with Xinzo da Limia. re, two facing exedras to assist the collection of wa- situated on a wide plain, making also a dividing line “Lama” is a Galician synonym for the word mud or This route of communication followed a path similar ter for the water carriers on both sides of the glass. between Lucenza and A Saceda, just at the edge clay soil that describes a “land dedicated to mea- to the current A-52 dual carriageway, and could have of the road that links this last place with that of A dows” or “marsh land”. But in the south east of Ga- been a stage of a long distance roman road that con- Wayside shrine of A Xironda Madanela (region of Monterrei), and was used as a licia they also identify the communal meadows as a nected Aquae Flaviae (Chaves) with Iria Flavia (Pa- 41.899800, -7.637526 visual and dividing frontier many centuries ago. The place where people used to take their cattle to graze. drón), crossing the valleys of the Támega, Búbal, the The mirtle village of A Xironda has multiple attrac- burial mound, as shown by Rodríguez Colmenero, In Ourense the lands that take the name of A plain of A Limia, the valley of Arnoia and the area of tions. In its proximities, is situated the fort of “Cidá de the frst person to study it, takes the shape of a trun- Lama are sometimes rented to private individuals. the Miño. Grou”, an Iron Age site that is administratively situa- cated cone that is 1,5 m in height and 15 metres in Here, in the village of A Saceda, there is a food prone Those two examples were uncovered during ted in Portugal, but it offers its best observation point diameter. area dedicated to seeding and private land that in old the construction works of this infrastructure in the from the Galicia side. It shows clear signs of being despoiled, as it has times was seen as a surplus area known as divided 1990s, some 150 m from where today they are dis- Densely populated in the past thanks to its fron- already lost the top slab and, in its place, currently areas. played. The milestones were cylindrical markers that tier and villa status, A Xironda is a compact village visible, is a ditch partially blocked off from where Consequentially the “lamas” of Ourense were showed the distances in miles along the communi- that possesses a magnifcent bread baking oven emerge the heads of three of the supports or orthos- and still are of great interest to the rural economy cation paths (some of which were paved or cobbled) which makes Porticado bread (similar to that of A Sa- tates that form part of the granite chamber that ori- of Galicia. The fresh grass is the main product from The church of Santa Baia de Montes constructed during the roman occupation (I-IV cen- ceda) that serves as an example of the magnifcent ginally served to take the weight of a top slap. this area, and from here the farmers and countryside 41.964987, -7.554935 tury A.D). popular architecture of this region. The ethnography also gives us valuable infor- workers of the village of A Saceda and, probably du- The parochial church, of baroque style, has mason- The Ice Well of Serra do Larouco The oven that takes a rectangular form and has mation about this burial chamber. And so, the people ring the prehistoric and the Romanisation, the inha- ry walls and a rectangular foor with presbytery; on 41.950813, -7.640442 a communal use, stands out for the buttresses that of A Saceda tell that the mouros, the ancestors of bitants of the fort of A Cidá, would have had this area the facade there is a lintel door with moulding on the The “casas da neve” or ice wells are constructions reinforce the thick load bearing walls that sustains the Galicians, threw a hammer from the church of of land as a basic reference for feeding their cattle. lintel and on the lower part of the doorposts; a small that are built in order to obtain ice from the snow co- its splendid granite roof. A Xironda, which was under Dos Mouros (an elevation situated on the Larouco This is an area of great interest for the reproduc- bell gable crowns the whole. llected during the winter to be consumed during the the control of the distant Monastery of Melón during mountain range) until the fort of A Cidá da Saceda; tion of amphibians, among which is the Iberian spa- In the temple a magnifcent sundial stands out, summer. The ice well that we have here is an oval the Middle Ages, boasts an elegant parish church from there its inhabitants would throw it towards O defoot toad, the European tree frog and the Iberian but above all, the remains of a roman intersection, shape with a depth of three metres that was dug out and an extraordinary wayside shrine (“peto de áni- Madorriño, where it would be collected by the mou- Frog, classed as endangered species. Also present visible on the imposts of the cemetery door and also of the rock and from which, leads a ten metre long mas”) of baroque style, exquisitely carved resem- ros that inhabited this settlement, to be next thrown are the Green frog, the common frog, the Iberian pain- on the tower that that has a bell tower. channel from where the melted ice can be extracted. bling a noble house erected by intermediaries in the in the direction of the fort of A Cidá de San Millao. ted frog, the common salamander, or common newt Here, our attention is strongly attracted to a reu- The “neveira” (Ice Well), which used to have a roof centre of the village. Under the image of the Virgin and the green newt. sed semi circular fragment of tympanum in which a that has long since disappeared, belonged to the of Carmen, where they hang several scapulars, the In Lama da Saceda you can also fnd the Eura- cross in high relief was caved, which appears to be House of Monterrei during the XVI and XVII centu- souls of sinners are consumed by the purifying fre sian stone-curlew, a species of bird that has been from Malta, situated between a crescent and a ga- ries, as proved by a coat of arms found in its interior. of, between others, a bishop and the pope himself, classed as an endangered species. If we talk about lana fower. The ice wells were built by monasteries, cathe- identifed with the mitre and the tiara. Municipality of fora, of great interest is the atlantic humid heather, At the foot of the parish temple, a magnifcent dral chapters, cities and feudal lords in mountain ran- Cualedro which is a species included as a habitat of priority rectory house that still conserves a window at the ges. They were used, above all for the conservation interest; it is also relevant the enormous amount of side of its access doorway, shaped to enable the use of provisions, to cool down drinks and food and also As Mercedes different species of orchid. of fre arms from the inside. Its construction was en- for medicinal purposes. couraged by the Jesuits; evidence of this is an ins- cription (“commissioned by IHS”) carved into one of its walls. The Jesuits ruled during the XVI century the famous college of Monterrei, which was built on the Romanic and rectory of Atás site that today is occupied by a Parador hotel. 42.021751, -7.571446 On roman temple walls it’s not uncommon to fnd se- Entrance xual depictions etched into the stone. Together with images of medieval warriors, horoscopes, different types of animals - real or fantasy, hunting scenes, far- Baldriz mers, musicians or dancers, the sexual scenes seem Ice to be a strange iconography to use for decorating a Communal oven of A Xironda roman church in the middle ages. On one of the lateral facades of Saint Mary of Atás The Roman Site of Saint Martha Atás we can see, among other images, an erect pe- Diagram of an ice well dug out of the rock Laza 41.941552, -7.610739 nis of imprecise meaning: a warning against lust?; A The site situated 1,5 km to the south east of Lucen- survival of prophylactic value that the penis posses- Cualedro Castrelo N-52 za (in the parish of its namesake) was the object of sed?; a representation of the normal? (in that period 5 Riós archaeological excavation carried out by A.