Lugo's city centre, the former Lucus Augusti, is surrounded by a Roman Wall which is a total of 2226 metres long. This impressive fortress, one of the biggest of its time, was built up between the late III and early IV centuries. This was a critical period for the city, both from a political and military point of view. However, the entire length of the wall has been preserved-the only case known in the vast territory across three continents which was once part of the Roman Empire.

This is the reason why on December 2nd, 2000 the UNESCO UNESCO officially listed the Wall in Lugo as a World Heritage Site.

The Roman Wall was crowned by 85 impressive semi-circular towers with a diameter between 10 and 13 metres, bulging and rising two or three times the height of the battlements. Each of the towers was surmounted by large windows. Nowadays, they are only partially preserved at A Mosqueira; the windows of the remaining 71 have been lost. The towers also had built-in stone stairs; at ground level they had probably a wooden ramp that could be lifted as a kind of draw-bridge. The average width of the Wall was about six metres and there was a pedestrian walk on top. Nowadays it rises between eight and twelve metres from ground-level although its height was presumably even more in yesteryear. It is also supposed that there were battlements between the different towers.

Furthermore, the Wall was surrounded by a 5-metre deep and twenty-metre wide moat, which made it more difficult for war machinery to lay siege to the city, the only possibility, together with tunnel excavations, to assault the city.

This was Lugo's Roman Wall in the past. Seventeen centuries have passed by, the military role of the Wall has lapsed, its battlements destroyed (but for one at A Mosqueira) the city has sprawled beyond its circle and new gateways have been cut open. However, the Wall has preserved all its length, and it still remarkable how the 71 circular towers have been preserved, redering it a unique appearance.

Nowadays, ten gateways (five of them ancient, five more contemporary) lead from the old quarter into the new city. The path on top -some four metres wide) is now a pleasant strolling place, as if it were one more pedestrian streen that can be accessed through stone staircases cut into the inner side of the Wall. At daylight it affords the best perspective over the old quarter of the city; the dim lights at nightime allow for charming and poetic strolls.