Hotels in Pontevedra

Pontevedra is the small Galician city that urban planners keep citing: since the late nineteen-nineties it has pushed cars out of its centre, and the result is a granite old town where you can walk from plaza to plaza without dodging traffic. The medieval core is compact and handsome, with arcaded squares like Praza da Ferrería and Praza da Leña, the scallop-shell-shaped Santuario da Peregrina, and plenty of tapas bars serving Galician seafood and Albariño from the surrounding Rías Baixas.

Pilgrims on the Portuguese Way of the Camino de Santiago pass straight through, which gives the streets a steady trickle of walkers. This is a modest provincial capital rather than a destination packed with headline sights, Atlantic rain is frequent, and the hotel choice is limited, so it works best as a calm base for the Rías Baixas coast and Santiago. Stay inside or right beside the pedestrianised old town, where everything worth seeing is a short walk away.