Calle de Puenteáreas

This street in the barrio de Prosperidad recalls Puenteáreas, a town in the province of Pontevedra, in the Condado district, a few kilometres from Vigo. The name describes a bridge: the old stone crossing over the river Tea linked the parish of Areas, and from that ponte de Areas —⁠named for the sand carried down by the river’s floods⁠— came first the parish name and then the town’s. Puenteáreas is known above all for its carpets. Each Corpus Christi the town wakes upholstered in flowers: more than a kilometre of streets covered with petals, seeds and dyes, laid overnight on Saturday so that Sunday’s procession may walk over them. The tradition began when neighbours filled the ruts of the route with flowers, and today those fleeting carpets are declared a Festival of International Tourist Interest. In 2018 the city council swapped the Castilianised spelling for the Galician one: what was signed here as calle de Puenteáreas became officially calle de Ponteareas.