Pontevedra

Pontevedra took the cars away and the world came to look. Since the turn of the millennium the Galician capital has pedestrianised virtually its entire centre — school runs on foot, deliveries by timetable, traffic deaths near zero — and become urbanism's favourite field trip: delegations from every continent walk its granite lanes to see what a city sounds like without engines, which is to say: fountains, footsteps and conversation. The old town rewards the quiet — arcaded plazas like A Ferrería and A Leña, the scallop-shaped sanctuary of A Peregrina (the pilgrim Virgin's chapel drawn on a shell's floor plan, emblem of the Portuguese Way that crosses the city), and the ruined Santo Domingo's Gothic arches open to the sky.

The port once claimed Columbus's Santa María as local-built — Pontevedra's boatyards were medieval Galicia's finest — and the Lérez's estuary keeps the seafood constitution: the August Feira Franca returns the town to the sixteenth century in costume and torchlight. The stages are documented in the concert record: the Pazo da Cultura, the river-side auditorium of the city's seasons, and the Centro Social Caixanova's hall in the centre — the touring circuit's twin addresses. Streets returned to feet, squares returned to voices: Pontevedra is the argument, built and won.