Camino de Invierno
The Camino de Invierno is the one chosen by those who knew how to read the sky. While the French Camino crowns O Cebreiro and exposes itself to the snow, this one descends through the canyon of the Sil, where the river has carved over millions of years the deepest gorge in the Peninsula.
It passes beside Las Médulas, the mountain that Rome unmade with water to tear the gold from it, and enters the Ribeira Sacra, the slope of hanging vineyards and monasteries that give the land its name: rivoira sacrata, the bank of the cloisters. It follows the Sil to Monforte de Lemos, crosses into the Miño basin and reaches at Lalín the Camino Sanabrés, with which it shares the last days to Santiago.
It is the road of wine and slate, of the water that cuts the rock and of the pilgrim who preferred the valley to the summit. Two hundred and thirty kilometres that the Pilgrim's Office recognises as a Jacobean route of its own, and that were for centuries the logical winter passage: not a shortcut, but the choice of one who would not risk a foot in the snow.
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From the Latin Pons Ferrata 'iron bridge', referring to the bridge over the river Sil reinforced with iron bands by order of Bishop Osmundo of Astorga in the 11th century to secure pilgrim passage.
An unresolved etymology. The one secure element is the suffix -anza (from the Latin -antia), a pre-Roman formant abundant in the toponymy of the northwest; the root Priar- still lacks a firm explanation.
A debated etymology. The best-supported reading links it to the Latin meta / metula 'conical heap' —whence the Galician meda, a haystack—, after the pinnacles the mine left behind; others trace it to medulla 'marrow', the hollowed-out interior of the mountain, or to the Mons Medullius of the Asturian wars.
From the Latin pontem 'bridge' —after the stone bridge over the river Cabrera that gave rise to the town in the 13th century— followed by the personal name Domingo Flórez, of the Flórez lineage, 'son of Froila'.
Barco has a double reading —from the pre-Roman *barc- 'hollow' or from the word barca, 'boat', after the ferry over the Sil—; Valdeorras is not 'valley of gold' but 'valley of the gigurri', the Asturian people Pliny called Gigurri.
From the Latin Villa Martini 'the villa —the rural estate— of Martín', on the personal name Martinus; the addition de Valdeorras places it in the valley of the gigurri and distinguishes it from other Vilamartín.
From the Latin ruga —'furrow, fold' and, in late Latin, 'street, road'—: the town born along the road. The same word gives Galician and Portuguese rúa and Italian ruga.
Of disputed origin: from a Latin personal name Petinius —the estate of a certain Petinius— or from a reference to a 'set stone', a boundary marker or milestone of the Roman road. Neither reading has consensus.
A transparent compound: Galician monte furado 'pierced mountain', from the Latin montem foratum. The name is literal: a Roman tunnel perforates the mountain to divert the Sil and take its gold.
A debated etymology: from Galician queiruga / queiroga 'heather' —a place of heathland— or from a pre-Roman base, perhaps hydronymic, that the oldest forms seem to require.
Pobra, from the Latin populare 'to settle, to found a chartered town', recalls a medieval foundation by charter; Brollón goes back to the personal name Braulione, attested as early as 1050.
From the Latin Mons Fortis 'strong, fortified mount' —the hill of San Vicente that crowns the town—; Lemos preserves the name of the lemavi, a pre-Roman Galician people.
From the Latin (terram) plantatam '(land) planted or driven in', past participle of plantare —Galician chantar, 'to drive in'— with the shift pl- > ch-. It is debated whether it names a plantation or a stockade of driven stakes.
A debated etymology, from the Latin rota 'wheel' with the suffix -arium: 'road of cart-tracks', or a place of wheelwrights, or —by another path— a pre-Roman hydronym tied to running water.
Disputed etymology. The dominant hypothesis derives the name from the Gothic personal name Allini or Alini, an early medieval owner whose estate became fixed in the Latin genitive (villa) Allini. Others propose a pre-Roman root lal- without firm parallels.
At Lalín you join the Camino Sanabrés (the Galician branch of the Vía de la Plata). From here you share the same path all the way to Santiago de Compostela: it is still the road you follow to arrive.
From the Germanic banda ('strip, group distinctive, ensign'), through Old French bandiere and medieval Catalan bandera: 'ensign, standard'. The toponym probably commemorates a medieval jurisdictional episode —seigneurial concession, coat of arms or privilege— now lost.
Transparent compound: ponte (Latin pontem, 'bridge') + Ulla, the pre-Roman hydronym of the river the bridge crosses. Ulla has disputed etymology: possibly pre-Indo-European or Celtic with a hydronymic root ul-.
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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