Mondoñedo

The cathedral towers aren’t symmetrical. One is shorter, thicker, almost apologetic, which is why locals call the building “the kneeling cathedral”. Stand in the granite-flagged plaza at midday and the mismatch is obvious, yet somehow it suits Mondoñedo—a town that refuses to posture.

With 5,000 inhabitants scattered across a fold of green hills 15 km from the A-8 motorway, Mondoñedo lost its bishopric centuries ago but kept the architecture and the self-confidence. British visitors usually arrive after a morning on Playa de las Catedrales, 35 minutes away by car, and expect a quick photo stop. The town gives them frescoed chapels, almond-scented pastry and a bell that still strikes the quarter hour through the night. Whether that feels charming or mildly annoying depends on where your hotel room faces.

Stone, pastry and the smell of rain on granite

The historic core fits inside one square kilometre, yet it packs a seminary, an episcopal palace and enough porticoed lanes to keep the rain off winter shoulders. Start at the cathedral (last entry 18:30 winter, 19:30 summer; €7, €5 with a pilgrim credential). Inside, 14th-century wall paintings survive because someone bricked them up during a Baroque refit—an accidental time capsule. The English audio-guide is dry but essential; without it the side chapels blur into a haze of gilt and blood-red robes.

Opposite, the eighteenth-century seminary houses a small diocesan museum. Opening hours shrink in low season; if the door is locked, the guard will usually appear if you press the buzzer twice and look patient. Further uphill, fragments of medieval wall survive behind somebody’s washing line. The town never bothered to turn itself into an open-air museum; laundry flaps above Romanesque masonry and residents apologise for nothing.

On Rúa do Miño, Pastelería Serrano sells the local almond tart by weight. British palates detect Eccles-cake spices and a Bakewell density, but the pastry is thinner, the filling less sweet. Locals buy entire wheels for Sunday lunch; a single portion (£2.20) and a cortado will keep you going until the evening tapas crawl.

Up to the sanctuary and into the mist

Six minutes of calf-burning cobbles brings you to the Santuario dos Remedios, perched above the rooftops. The view stretches south over dairy fields that disappear into Atlantic haze; on clear days you can clock the lighthouse at Foz. The route is slippery after rain—trainers with grip are plenty, boots are overkill. Evening light turns the stone gold and the bells start again, echoing off the hillside so you can’t tell which note is real and which is reflection.

If you need more leg-stretch, the Salto do Coro waterfall trail begins behind the old fountain at the edge of town. The path climbs 250 m over 3 km each way, through eucalyptus and bracken that smells like a Cornish valley in August. No entrance fee, no tea van at the end, just a 30 m ribbon of water that’s impressive in winter and a polite trickle by July.

A town that still makes things

Mondoñedo’s economy wobbles between agriculture and the weekly influx of Camino walkers, yet a handful of lacemakers and embroidery workshops persist. They don’t open like museums; knock politely and someone will lift a bolt of linen to show how traditional colcha stitching differs from modern machine copies. Prices start at €40 for a small table runner—less than John Lewis charges for imported polyester, and it will outlive you.

Evening entertainment is resolutely domestic. Pensioners fill the benches in Plaza de España to debate dairy prices; teenagers circle on bikes. British visitors expecting craft-gin bars end up in Adega O Bebedeiro instead, where octopus arrives on a wooden platter, dusted with pimentón and paired with country bread. A half-ración (£7) is enough if you’ve been nibbling free pinchos all afternoon—every drink brings a saucer of something: tortilla, chorizo, occasionally a tiny empanada. Order two cañas and you’ve had a light supper.

When to come, and when to stay away

Spring and early autumn give long daylight, green fields and temperatures that hover around 18 °C—perfect for walking without the sweat-soaked shirt you’ll collect on the coast. August fills the bars with families from Lugo and the occasional Brit who misread the map expecting sand. Even then the town never feels crushed; accommodation is limited to four small hotels and a couple of pilgrim albergues, so numbers regulate themselves.

Winter is misty, poetic and frequently closed. Museums shut at 14:00, cafés pull shutters on Tuesdays, and the cathedral’s central heating consists of a single bar radiator. Bring a fleece and low expectations; you’ll be rewarded with stone corridors that echo only your own footsteps and hotel rates under £50 including breakfast.

Rain is not an event here, it’s a season. Galicia earns its nickname “the green corner” by refusing to discriminate between months. A shower can arrive in July and stay for three days; pack a proper waterproof even if the BBC app promises sun. The cobbles on Rúa Nova drain badly—one misplaced heel and you’ll sit down harder than you have since the office Christmas party.

Getting here, cash and other mundane truths

The town’s bus station looks bombed-out but a daily Monbus service links Lugo (50 min) and Ribadeo (30 min). Timetables disappear at weekends; check the Xunta website the same morning or you may spend an unplanned night. Driving is easier: leave the A-8 at exit 528, follow the N-642 for 12 km of switchbacks, then park on the ring-road—signs read “APARCADOIRO”. Attempting to squeeze a hire Polo into the old quarter will cost you a wing mirror and the sympathy of every resident.

ATMs sometimes run dry on Saturday night; withdraw cash before 15:00 or you’ll be washing dishes. English is thin on the ground—download Spanish or Galician phrases. Staff are patient, menus are not translated, and pointing works until you accidentally order a plate of pigs’ ears.

Hot water can be erratic in seventeenth-century buildings; ask to see the boiler before you commit to two nights. If bells keep you awake, request a room facing away from the plaza—the tower tolls every fifteen minutes and on the hour strikes twice “so the dead get the time as well,” a local waiter explains with a shrug.

Last orders

Mondoñedo won’t keep you busy for a week. You can exhaust the monuments by teatime and still have an hour before the cathedral locks up. Yet that is precisely its appeal: a place that measures itself in daily rituals rather than bucket-list ticks. Buy the tart, climb the hill, listen to the bell you thought you’d hate. Then drive back to the coast and realise the motorway hasn’t siphoned off everything—just the souvenir snow-globes. What remains is a small Galician town comfortable in its own uneven stone skin, and for once that is more than enough.