Galicia

Before Rome, Galicia was the land of the castros, walled hillforts of round stone houses such as Santa Trega above the Miño mouth and Baroña on the coast, whose Iron Age people are often linked to the Celts. Rome conquered the north-west under Augustus and named it Gallaecia; its legacies include the walls of Lugo and the Tower of Hercules in A Coruña, both UNESCO World Heritage Sites. After the empire, the Suebi ruled a kingdom here until the Visigoths absorbed it in 585, and the Muslim conquest barely touched the region.

In the early 9th century a tomb identified as that of the apostle James was found at the site of Santiago de Compostela, and the pilgrimage that followed made a remote corner of Europe one of Christendom's three great goals, with Rome and Jerusalem. The cathedral rose from 1075, and Master Mateo completed its Pórtico da Gloria in 1188. Galicia later passed firmly under Castile and long remained a poor province of small farms.

Hunger drove mass emigration from the 19th century to Cuba, Argentina and Uruguay, so that "gallego" came to mean any Spaniard in Buenos Aires. A literary revival, the Rexurdimento, began with Rosalía de Castro's Cantares gallegos in 1863. Franco was born in Ferrol, and after his death Galicia became an autonomous community in 1981. The Prestige tanker disaster of 2002 fouled the Costa da Morte and prompted a mass volunteer clean-up.

Galician, a language close to Portuguese, is co-official and widely spoken, strongest in the countryside and among older people. The Día das Letras Galegas on 17 May honours a writer each year. Galicians are often described as reserved and famously noncommittal, with a strong attachment to the land and to the villages left by emigrants.

Music centres on the gaita, the Galician bagpipe, and the muiñeira dance, and folk groups play at the summer romarías, pilgrim festivals to rural shrines. Stone hórreos, granaries raised on pillars, and cruceiros, carved wayside crosses, mark the landscape. Folklore of meigas, or witches, and the Santa Compaña procession of souls lives on in the ritual of the queimada, a flaming spirit punch recited over with a spell.

Summer brings the Rapa das Bestas at Sabucedo, where wild horses are rounded up and their manes cut, the octopus festival at O Carballiño, and Santiago's feast of Saint James on 25 July. Years when that day falls on a Sunday are Holy Years and bring the largest numbers of pilgrims.

About 2.7 million people live in Galicia, most along the Atlantic side between Ferrol and Vigo. Vigo is the largest city with about 295,000 people, followed by A Coruña with about 245,000; Ourense, Lugo, Santiago and Pontevedra each have around 80,000 to 105,000. The interior provinces of Lugo and Ourense are among the oldest and fastest-emptying parts of Spain.

Fishing and seafood farming are the backbone of the coast: Vigo is one of Europe's biggest fishing ports, and the rías are lined with bateas, wooden rafts for growing mussels. Vigo also has a large car factory, Ferrol builds ships, and Inditex, the owner of Zara, is headquartered at Arteixo outside A Coruña. Farming is still based on small family plots, the minifundio.

Life has a slower rhythm than in the south, with plenty of time spent in taverns over a glass of wine and a plate of octopus. Santiago is a university town as much as a pilgrim one, and the regional parliament and government sit there.

Galicia is Spain's seafood larder. Pulpo á feira, boiled octopus sliced onto a wooden plate with olive oil, paprika and coarse salt, is the signature dish. Percebes, goose barnacles prised from surf-battered rocks, are the prized delicacy, alongside mussels, scallops, razor clams, spider crab and small cockles. Pimientos de Padrón, small green peppers fried and salted, come from the town of that name, and most are mild but the odd one is hot.

Inland food is hearty: caldo galego, a broth of greens, potatoes and beans; lacón con grelos, cured pork shoulder with turnip tops; and empanada, a large flat pie filled with tuna, meat or cockles. Galician beef is highly regarded. Tetilla, a soft cow's-milk cheese shaped like a breast, and Arzúa-Ulloa are the best-known cheeses. Tarta de Santiago is an almond cake marked with the cross of Saint James, and filloas are thin crêpes.

The wines are mostly white: Albariño from the Rías Baixas, Ribeiro and Godello from Valdeorras, with red Mencía from the steep terraces of the Ribeira Sacra. Orujo, a grape-pomace spirit, is the basis of the queimada.

Santiago de Compostela's cathedral faces the Praza do Obradoiro, with the Hostal dos Reis Católicos, now a parador, beside it; the whole granite old town is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Camino's final stretch, the last 100 kilometres of the Camino Francés from Sarria through Portomarín, Melide and Arzúa to Monte do Gozo, is the minimum walk for the Compostela certificate, and many pilgrims continue to Fisterra on the Costa da Morte.

A Coruña has the Roman Tower of Hercules, the glazed balconies of its waterfront Marina and the Riazor beach. Vigo, on its ría, has the old fishing quarter and the Castro hill, and ferries to the Cíes Islands, where the white Rodas beach links two islands within the Atlantic Islands of Galicia National Park.

The Rías Baixas take in the old town of Pontevedra, the hórreos of Combarro on the shore, Cambados and its Albariño wineries, and the resort island of A Toxa. Further north, the Costa da Morte's cliffs lead to Cape Fisterra and Muxía, and on the northern coast the rock arches of the Praia das Catedrais lie near Ribadeo, and Cape Ortegal lies further west. Inland are the Roman walls of Lugo, the hot springs of Ourense, and the canyons of the Sil in the Ribeira Sacra, lined with monasteries and terraced vines.