Portugal / Spain Trip 31: Betanzos, Spain.

Wednesday 7th May 2025

We have headed east today, inland from the coast, but within striking distance. We are staying at the small hill-top, walled medieval city of Betanzos, which, continuing the theme of Camino de Santiago, lies on another camino route. This camino is known as the “The English Way”. It starts in the port of Ferrol on the Galician coast and was established in the 12th century as an alternative to the more popular “French Way”, attracting pilgrims from northern Europe, including the UK, Ireland and Scandinavia.

Betanzos is flanked by two rivers, the Mandeo and the Mendo and was the capital of one of the ancient provinces of the kingdom of Galicia and was the region’s capital in 1065-1071 under King Garcia.

Some of the city walls survive and three of the town gates are also to be found.

Being on the camino route, the Roman Catholic Church is much in evidence and there are several churches, all from medieval times. We visited two, the Church of Santiago and the Church of San Francisco.

The Church of Santiago is a 15th century church with a basilica plan. It is quite plain inside and of note is the way that the tall supporting columns lean-out from the nave dramatically.

The Church of San Francisco is older, dating from the second half of the 14th century. It contains many tombs of knights from the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries.

One of the most notable tombs, is that of Fernán Pérez de Andrade at the end of the nave, which sits on a stone-carved bear and boar.

In fact boars/pigs feature in several places in the church”

Much of this blog seems to feature religious content. Although not in the least religious myself, I find churches and other old buildings very interesting. I will try and limit such content for the next few entries.

For information, the city has a small, free motorhome park-up that includes services. It is a flat, tarmac area, near to the river bridge into the centre.

That is it for today. See u Later, TTFN.