Molina has something to say about the hot springs at Orense: “In the middle of Orense, hot springs bubble up with as great a noise of boiling as if they were heated from below by a great furnace. The water is so hot that you cannot put your finger into it even for a minute: you can cook fish in it. The women wash their linen there, and make every use of the hot water that they would make of it in their own houses.” The ground is so warm round these springs that
| APSE OF THE PARISH CHURCH AT ALLARIZ, ORENSE | FAÇADE OF THE CHURCH OF EL MOSTEIRO | ENTRANCE TO ORENSE CATHEDRAL |
frost and snow are never seen near them even when all the rest of the town is covered with a white carpet.
The Cathedral of Orense, dedicated to St. Martin of Tours, stands on the spot where Carriarico, King of the Sueves, erected a church in the ninth century. The present edifice was erected by Bishop Lorenzo in the first half of the thirteenth century. Since then it has undergone restoration at various periods, with the result that the form of its exterior is somewhat irregular. It is in the Gothic style, and its naves, transept, and apse are remarkable for their elegant simplicity. The lantern tower was restored as recently as the close of the nineteenth century. A narrow street, the Calle de las Tiendas, now runs in front of the principal entrance, which once had a fine flight of steps leading up to it. Like so many of the churches in Galicia, this Cathedral was planned and begun in the Romanesque style, though it was eventually finished in the Gothic. The lantern is notable, as Lamperez has pointed out, as an example of the amalgamation of the Mohammedan system of vaulting—without a keystone—and the Christian with one.
Like the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, that of Orense also possesses a Pórtico de Gloria, but this is, alas! nothing but a poor imitation of Mateo’s masterpiece, executed in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries; and to one who has carefully studied Mateo’s work the copy at Orense seems nothing but a painful caricature. The people of Orense call it El Paraiso. The cloister was begun in the fifteenth century, and, judging from the small part of it still intact, it must have been a beautiful example of Gothic work. A Romanesque gate led to the cloister; the few of its capitals remaining show some interesting sculpture.