My initial reactions on arriving at the Pazo de Oca were mixed. I instantly took to the buildings and their setting, at the centre of a tiny hamlet in the hills of inland Galicia. Facing us across an open green square was an elegant baroque stone chapel with ornate twin bell-towers, from which elevated walkways, supported by arches, stretched off to either side. The one to the right became a balcony where it joined, and could be accessed from, the first floor of the 18th-century Pazo (manor-house) itself. The manor’s frontage occupied the entire side of the square, mostly two-storeyed but ...
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