Spanish Version

2015/04/02

The Belesar Reservoir in Portomarín, Province of Lugo.




Portomarín is a small town located in the Province of Lugo. It is of about 1600 inhabitants and it is a major staging post of The Way of St. James. Its history has been linked to The Way but also to the Miño River and to the Roman Bridge that crosses the river.

Life in Portomarín changed when the Belesar Reservoir was built in 1963, with its hydroelectric plant about 30 kilometres downstream. The village in its entirety was flooded and a new village was built in Monte do Cristo. The Romanesque church of San Xoán (San Juan, Saint John), also called church of San Nicolás, was moved to the new village and rebuilt stone by stone the same as the church of San Pedro which was built in the tenth century. An arch of the Roman Bridge also was moved and today it is located at the entrance of Portomarín.







When the water level of the reservoir goes down we can see the remains of the old village. It has two parts: San Pedro was on the left bank of the river, where the viewpoint in the picture is. San Xoán was on the other side where the new village is today (to the right of the picture).


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You can see on both banks of the river the remains of the houses there were in the two parts of Portomarín, San Pedro and San Xoán. The exact place where the Romanesque church of San Xoán was located is just where the ramp of the sailing club end, in the center of the picture, a little to the right.

























We are now crossing the modern bridge and look at the reservoir upstream.


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We can see the new village. It was built in 1963 on Monte do Cristo. It also can be seen the Romanesque church of San Xoán at the top of the village.















The V-shaped cannel we can see to the right of the picture is a caneiro. It was used to fish, especially eels. There is a small stone structure at the apex. It is called pía. Fishermen place nets in the pía to catch the fishes.







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