Camino de la Geira y los Arrieiros
The Camino de la Geira y los Arrieiros is two roads in one, a thousand years apart. The first was traced by Rome: the Via Nova, the military road that linked Bracara Augusta with Asturica Augusta in the late 1st century. Its passage through the Gerês holds the greatest concentration of milestones known anywhere in the Empire —stone columns with the emperor's name and the distance back to Braga, counted mile by mile—. The walker treads the same stone as the legions and reads, in Latin, how far they have come.
The second road was made by the muleteers. When the Empire departed, the road lived on as a route for mule-trains: beasts laden with Ribeiro wine climbing northward, arre and arre, over the same passes. From that trade the road takes the second half of its name.
It crosses the Xurés by the Portela do Homem, descends to the baths of Riocaldo —the Roman mansio of the waters—, passes Lobios and, already in the Ribeiro, crosses the Miño at Ribadavia, capital of the wine the muleteers carried. From there it climbs the Montes do Testeiro and descends to Santiago through the Terra de Montes: it borrows no other road, it arrives on its own. It is the road of hot water and milestone, of legionary and muleteer, of a way that never fell out of use.
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From the Latin Bracara Augusta, 'the Bracara of Augustus': the name of the pre-Roman bracari people joined to that of the emperor who founded the city. Braga is the contraction of Bracara.
From the Latin portella, diminutive of porta: 'the little gate', the low pass that opens the Gerês range; followed by do Homem, 'of the river Homem', whose valley the road climbs.
The río Caldo, from the Latin calidus 'hot', after its thermal waters; the baths are those of the Roman mansio of the Via Nova, long read as Aquis Originis.
It is not 'wolf'. Lobios is the plural of lobio —the trellis, the vine raised over the path—, from the Germanic *laubja 'shelter, gallery'. Friar Sarmiento already clarified it in 1754.
From the Latin corticata, on cortex 'bark'; the sense is debated —'the bark-covered', an enclosure, or a place of stripping bark—. Pliny already named an insula Corticata.
From the Latin ripa Aviae, 'the bank of the Avia': the town at the confluence of the river Avia with the Miño. Avia is a pre-Roman hydronym, from the old water-root *av-.
Pazos, from the Latin palatium 'palace, manor house' —the Galician pazo—; Arenteiro, from the river, the old Argentarium, 'the silver one', after its silvery sands.
A possessor toponym: from the genitive of the Germanic personal name Viaricus, '(the estate) of Viaricus'. It is one of the many Galician names in -riz that fix the owner of an old holding.
A plant-name: from codeso —the shrub Adenocarpus— plus the collective suffix -eda (from the Latin -eta): 'the codeso-ground', the place where the codesos abound.
Santiago from the Latin Sanctus Iacobus, 'Saint James'. Compostela has two readings: the scholarly one, from the Latin compositum 'cemetery' (from componere 'to bury'); the popular one, encouraged by the Jacobean legend, reads Campus Stellae 'field of the star', after the stars that in the 9th century revealed the apostle's tomb to Bishop Theodemir.
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