San Romao da Retorta

San Romao da Retorta is a parish of the municipality of Guntín, in the province of Lugo, which the Camino Primitivo crosses on its final run towards Santiago, through gentle Galician farmland. Its setting has Roman roots: the road linking Lucus Augusti (Lugo) with southern Galicia ran through here, and from that time comes the famous milestone of San Romao, a granite column dedicated to the emperor Caligula whose replica recalls the thousand-year-old passage of the route. That past makes the village a place charged with history, where pilgrims walk quite literally in the tracks of ancient travellers. The scattered houses, spread among meadows, oak woods and small country churches, keep the calm of inland Galicia. For the walker, San Romao da Retorta marks the end of the first stage after Lugo and offers the basic services needed to rest before tackling the approach to Melide, where the Primitivo joins the Camino Francés. It is a quiet, farming stop, a serene prelude to the home straight towards Compostela.