The church of Santa Cruz de Arabaldo was originally a small monastery that depended on the important Cistercian community of Oseira: its documents date it as early as the 12th century. It consists of a single nave and rectangular apse.
Its façade is Baroque, but the rest of the stonework is Romanesque. Thus, on the southern façade we find a mysterious inscription with Romanesque characters and on the cornice some corbels with geometric decoration. On the northern façade, on the other hand, the corbels have vegetal decoration, and a checkered semicircular gate appears, supported by vegetal capitals and two bovines on the brackets.
The rectangular apse is lower than the central nave. Both end in a cornice supported by corbels: the southern ones have geometric shapes and a monstrous animal, while on the northern ones there is a person drinking from a barrel, an animal that seems to be looking at us and a bird clutching an object. The head has a semicircular arched window with checkered patteern supported by capitals (some decorated with birds) on smooth columns. The apse is finished off in an Agnus Dei with a ram whose cross is missing
References:Roman Walls of Lugo are an exceptional architectural, archaeological and constructive legacy of Roman engineering, dating from the 3rd and 4th centuries AD. The Walls are built of internal and external stone facings of slate with some granite, with a core filling of a conglomerate of slate slabs and worked stone pieces from Roman buildings, interlocked with lime mortar.
Their total length of 2117 m in the shape of an oblong rectangle occupies an area of 1.68 ha. Their height varies between 8 and 10 m, with a width of 4.2 m, reaching 7 m in some specific points. The walls still contain 85 external towers, 10 gates (five of which are original and five that were opened in modern times), four staircases and two ramps providing access to the walkway along the top of the walls, one of which is internal and the other external. Each tower contained access stairs leading from the intervallum to the wall walk of town wall, of which a total of 21 have been discovered to date.
The defences of Lugo are the most complete and best preserved example of Roman military architecture in the Western Roman Empire.
Despite the renovation work carried out, the walls conserve their original layout and the construction features associated with their defensive purpose, with walls, battlements, towers, fortifications, both modern and original gates and stairways, and a moat.
Since they were built, the walls have defined the layout and growth of the city, which was declared a Historical-Artistic Ensemble in 1973, forming a part of it and becoming an emblematic structure that can be freely accessed to walk along. The local inhabitants and visitors alike have used them as an area for enjoyment and as a part of urban life for centuries.
The fortifications were added to UNESCO"s World Heritage List in late 2000 and are a popular tourist attraction.
