Our verdict on Lugo

Having heard that Lugo (like York, England) had a fully intact Roman wall, we approached it with high expectations and it did not disappoint.

If you have never witnessed a walled city before, Lugo offers a great opportunity to see something that dates back close to two thousand years and signifies the importance of a town over several centuries, dynasties and changes in fortune. Left, one of the gates that provide ingress into Lugo.

The wall itself is spectacular and you can walk around it, on it and through it at its various gates and access stairs. Once inside the old town, there are several buildings worth exploring and you can also venture outside the city walls to see the impressive Rosalia de Castro gardens. An old Roman spa is also only a short car journey away and is located close to the river "Mino".

Most vacationers to Galicia like to take a break and have a coffee or beverage in a traditional café, and Lugo's many small squares offer ample opportunity to do that. The region of Lugo also has a reputation for its cuisine and provincial wines and restaurants where you can enjoy these can also be found both sides of the Roman wall.

If we had to find a drawback to the city of Lugo, it would be its scale combined with its lack of truly monumental buildings. Although a provincial capitol, Lugo does not match up to the "Santiago's" and "A Coruna's" of Galicia and would be better compared with the similar sized "Pontevedra". That said Lugo's cathedral gets high marks, especially for its tiny chapels in the apse, and a walk a-top the city's Roman walls is a privilege in itself.

The scale of Lugo also has advantages. Firstly, it helps ensure that you can catch the city's main tourist sights in a single day's visit. The same is certainly not true of the massive city of "A Coruna". Secondly, the flocks of tourists that populate "Santiago de Compostela" are absent giving you the impression (and it is a true one) that you are experiencing something reserved for the lucky few. Left, Lugo Cathedral.

All told, we felt that our three hour journey to Lugo was well rewarded. Certainly you would never prioritize a trip to Lugo ahead of somewhere like "Santiago de Compostela", but we found our visit more worthwhile than that to Pontevedra and probably even the larger Ourense (apologies to Colin Davies who lives in the former).

Finally. if you stay in Lugo, you have Galicia's largest province at your feet and there is plenty to see. When we visited Lugo we also stopped off at the famous "Castro de Viladonga" ruins and then headed off to a monastery at "Samos". As a cautionary note we did not make it back to our accommodation in "Noia" until gone 3.00am the following morning.