Soutomaior Castle

Halfway between Pontevedra and Vigo, Soutomaior Castle stands on a 29-hectare estate that alone makes the visit worthwhile. Its botanical garden is home to 175 different tree species, some more than eight hundred years old, and a collection of 300 camellias of 22 varieties that earned it the title of International Camellia Garden of Excellence in 2012, awarded by the International Camellia Society.

Built in the 12th century, the fortress was the cradle and seat of power of the Soutomaior family, one of the most influential lineages of medieval Galicia. Its most famous resident was Pedro Madruga, who in the 15th century strengthened its defences and adapted the walls to the arrival of firearms, a transformation that still allows you to read the evolution of the art of war in its stones.

Centuries later, the castle took on a new guise. In the late 19th century, Antonio Aguilar y Correa, Marquis of Vega de Armijo and of Mos, and his wife Zenobia Vinyals turned it into a summer residence and gave it the Neo-Gothic look it sports today. In the early 20th century it passed to their niece María Vinyals, a writer and pioneer of Galician feminism, whose memory lives on in the Equality School that bears her name and has been based here since 2016.

Acquired by the Pontevedra Provincial Council in 1982 and restored in 1987, the building has housed a museum tracing the key moments of its history since May 2018. It is worth setting aside time for both: getting to know the castle from the inside, and then wandering, unhurried, among its trees and camellias.