We visited a town called Mondoñedo. It’s somewhere we’ve wanted to go for a while and we were waiting till we had to go that way for something else, but it’s sort of in the wrong direction for all the errands we need to run, so we decided to just have a trip out to visit it – something we haven’t done for a long time.
It’s about 40km away from us, inland and across country.
It’s a town with a population of 3.4k people – which actually makes it the 5th largest town in a Mariña (a ‘comarca’ – a group of councils, a bit like a county).
It’s famous for its cathedral, which was rather impressive. And the fact it’s part of the Camino Santiago – which is one of the main caminos.
We did see a few pilgrims
You can see that the one on the left has the shell hanging from his rucksack.
The town itself was quite interesting – it was a mix of old historic properties and abandoned/derilict properties.
And small narrow streets
We also found the home of a famous local cake ‘King of Tarts’.
One thing we saw which we realized was unusual was a cemetry with below the ground graves. I don’t think we’ve seen one since we’ve been here. Certainly in Extremadura it was all above the ground burial.
There were a few alberges (hostels), including this council one. I think the council one would be an ‘official’ one where pilgrims can get their cards stamped to prove they’ve walked the entire camino.
It was only as we were heading back that we realized we’d seen no sign of industry – or anything really that suggested how the town would have been prosperous in the past (which it would have been looking at the buildings).
So I took a look at the town website and its wealth came completely from the Cathedral and all that’s connected to it – which would have been things like education, hospitals, monasteries and convents…
The population has declined significantly over recent years – I guess because of lack of jobs. It was 7.5k people at one point, so it has halved in size.
It’s difficult to imagine what the future of a place like this will be. Of course it’s an important place on the pilgrim trail, and I am sure that this keeps many businesses going – but with no obvious sign of industry, and an aging population – it’s hard to think the prosperity of years gone by will return.
There are a few towns like this around, where the ‘old town’ is getting rapidly depopulated. I think one reason is the streets are too narrow for cars. We’ve seen in Viveiro, where the streets around the old town are very narrow, delivery people with carts stacked high with Amazon boxes as they deliver. For many people, both full time residents as well as tourists, not having car access to a property (even to just be able to drop off heavy items), must be a real inconvenience. Perhaps it’s time to reintroduce donkeys!