Boal - Tourism

Tourism

Its most ancient signs are the cave paintings in the Cova del Demo. They are male, female and zoomorphic paintings. We can also find different architectural examples: palaces, large houses and churches, among which it is worth mentioning the following:

• The Miranda Palace in Prelo, built during the 15th and 16th centuries and declared "well of cultural interest" in 1982. At first it consisted in a square tower with three floors that was subsequently extended. It had small openings that were later enlarged. The main body of the palace has two floors in the back side and one floor in the front side, due to the unevenness of the terrain. Above the entrance door it is placed a big coat of arms belonging to the family González de Prelo y Castrillón. Between the tower and the chapel there is an extra body, with corridors supported by stone columns. The chapel dates from 1776, having rectangle floor with two loopholes in both wings, and two Rococo-inspired altarpieces painted in black and white. The wooden sculptures from the 17th and 18th centuries were removed because of the bad situation of the ceiling.
• The Berdín Palace in Doiras, from the 18th century, which attracts the attention because of its great size and its walls without any kind of decoration. It is constructed with masonry, with blocks of stone. Its floor has a U shape, and in the façade of the central courtyard there is a gallery above monolithic columns.

• The Palace of Armal, with the typical structure of the rural large houses: rectangular floor, built with masonry and slate, and having very little decoration.
• Villa Anita: it was built in 1926 by an emigrant to Cuba. It is a villa with a T-shaped floor, with three floors, in which English influences can be observed, together with Japanese ones and others from the Middle Ages. The façade is decorated with white ceramics (glazed tiles from Talavera) on its wings, having the main façade plant patterns. There is a glazed balcony on the first floor. The roof has two wings and it is covered with slate, and over the eaves it has some wooden decoration made of cut borders. The inside is as rich and well-preserved as the outside.
• Villa Damiana, built in 1919, is also a wonderful example of the historically-inspired architecture.
• Old Elementary School "Escuelas Graduadas" in Boal: this school was built between 1930 and 1934, promoted as other public works in the municipality by the "Sociedad de Instrucción Naturales del Concejo de Boal", founded in La Habana, Cuba (this was due to the high number of emigrants from Boal who had gone to that country in search of fortune) although it had also money contribution from the state and from emigrants in Buenos Aires. It is a great building constructed with stone, with large windows and two entrances framed by big porchs, because boys entered by one wing whereas girls entered by the opposite one. All the roofs have big wooden eaves.
• The Church of Santiago Apóstol in Boal, built between 1831 and 1837, with a Latin cross-shaped floor and a lateral porch built of granitic blocks of stone.
• The public Washing House in Boal, built thanks to the money sent by emigrants to the Americas and inaugurated in 1928. It has been recently restored and transformed into the Center for the Interpretation of the Washing Houses in the municipality of Boal. The building exhibits an important constructive wealth with a functional style, having mouldings and pinnacles, and it is a good example of the charitable anxiety for their native villages and for the poorest people of the returning emigrants.
• Casa de la Apicultura is an apiculture museum.