During my visit of Galicia in August 2022, I spent one day in Lugo to explore the town and its two WHS: the Roman walls and its cathedral.

I went there by car, drove under one of the gates and parked within the Roman walls. I first went for a stroll to get a feel of the town and to visit the tourist office, that also offers an interpretation centre for the Walls. Unfortunately, it’s only in Spanish, so I whizzed through looking at some of the pictures about the construction of the wall.

I went for a small walk around the outside of the wall and then did the whole tour of the town on top of the walls starting at the ramp in front of the cathedral, where you will also find a stele with the Unesco symbol. The wall doesn’t offer many places with shade, so a walk on the walls maybe wasn’t the best idea when the sun is at its highest and hottest, but it gave me something to do during the time most of the other sites were closed because of the siesta. There are nice views over the historic centre, but you also have parts where you just see less attractive backs of houses.

To get a better understanding of the Roman history of Lugo, or “Lucus Augusti” as it was called in those days, I visited the Provincial Museum, which has some Roman mosaics and other objects from the Roman period. There is the University Museum “A Domus do Mitreo”, where you can see the rests of a Roman house with a Mithraeum. On the Rúa Doutor Castro, there is the “Casa dos Mosaicos”, where you can still see Roman mosaics in situ. A short video, only in Spanish, tells the story of the house. The person in charge was very friendly and explained the different parts of the house to me in English. Parts of the street also have glass tiles that show the mosaics that lie under it.The exposition hall just outside the Porta Miñá also housed an exposition on the Roman history of Lugo, completed with a video of how the town evolved from Roman times to today.

The Provincial Museum, the “Casa dos Mosaicos” and the Porta Miñá expositio hall were free and I feel they completed the picture of the Roman history of Lugo, of which the Walls form an important part.