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By carTanja Freibott — CC BY-SA 3.0 es (Wikimedia Commons)A Coruña, Galicia, Spain · Spain
More than a hundred kilometres of Galician coast open to the Atlantic with nothing to shelter it, and that is the reason for the name: hundreds of ships have gone down here. The Serpent in 1890 with a hundred and seventy-three dead, the HMS Captain in 1870 with four hundred and seventy-two. There are crosses along the cliffs and a cemetery out on the moor for those who reached the shore already dead. But this is also where the Roman world believed the land ended, and where pilgrims still come to see the ocean.
Ézaro, Corcubión and Cape Finisterre · 28 km
Tanja Freibott — CC BY-SA 3.0 es (Wikimedia Commons)nature
The river Xallas drops straight into the sea from Monte Pindo, one of the very few rivers in Europe that empty like this, as a waterfall over the ocean. Behind it, the Pindo is a massif of pink granite known as the Celtic Olympus.
Note: the fall is regulated by a hydroelectric plant and does not always run. Check the release times before making the detour, because with no flow you will only see rock.
20 min to the next stop · 14 km
Luis Miguel Bugallo Sánchez (User:Lmbuga) — CC BY-SA 3.0 (Wikimedia Commons)heritage
A seafaring town tucked at the head of its ria, with a listed historic centre and a row of grand houses with white glazed balconies looking over the harbour. It was the region's trading port back when Fisterra was only a fishing village.
It is the one stop on the route sheltered from wind and swell, because it sits at the head of the ria. A good place to eat before heading out to the open coast.
20 min to the next stop · 14 km
Grela — Public domain (Wikimedia Commons)history
For the Roman world, the land ended here: finis terrae. The lighthouse stands on the point, and the Camino's kilometre zero reaches it, because many pilgrims carry on this far after arriving in Santiago, looking for the ocean. Off this coast the HMS Captain went down in 1870 with four hundred and seventy-two crew: the worst shipwreck of the Costa da Morte.
The sunset from the lighthouse is what everyone comes for, and in summer you need to arrive an hour ahead to park. A serious warning: do not climb down to the rocks below. The Atlantic surges in here without warning and takes people every year.
Touriñán, Muxía and Camariñas · 49 km
Basotxerri — CC BY-SA 4.0 (Wikimedia Commons)viewpoints
The westernmost point of mainland Spain, further west than Fisterra, though almost nobody knows it. For a few weeks each year it is also the place on the European continent where the sun sets latest.
There is nothing built here but the lighthouse: rock, heather and wind. Which is exactly why it is usually empty while Fisterra is packed.
40 min to the next stop · 32 km
Estevoaei — CC BY-SA 4.0 (Wikimedia Commons)culture
The sanctuary of the Virxe da Barca stands on the rocks, so close to the sea that the waves reach it. Legend says the Virgin appeared here in a stone boat to encourage the Apostle James, and the enormous stones beside it are, by tradition, the sail and the rudder.
Muxía and Camariñas are the two bobbin-lace towns, a craft women here still practise in their doorways. If you see someone working, look but do not photograph up close without asking.
25 min to the next stop · 17 km
Antonio — CC BY-SA 2.0 (Wikimedia Commons)culture
The town of bobbin lace, a craft said to have arrived by sea and is kept here as nowhere else in Spain: there is a museum, a school and an annual show that brings together lacemakers from across Europe. The harbour is still a working fishing port.
The lace museum is small but explains well why this is not souvenir craftwork: it was the household economy when the men went to sea and did not always come back.
Cape Vilán, the English Cemetery and Laxe · 48 km
Estruébanos — CC0 (Wikimedia Commons)history
In 1896 it became the first electric lighthouse in Spain, built after the Serpent went down close by in 1890 with almost all her crew and the tragedy caused a great stir in Britain. It stands on a hundred-and-twenty-five-metre cliff and there is a museum devoted to the shipwrecks of this coast.
It is one of the windiest spots in the peninsula: hold on along the walkway and stay away from the edge. The museum explains why this coast is called what it is called.
20 min to the next stop · 8 km
Mussklprozz — CC BY-SA 4.0 (Wikimedia Commons)history
A graveyard on open ground above the Trece inlet, with no village around it. Here they buried the dead of the Serpent that the sea gave back. She was a Royal Navy cruiser that struck these rocks in November 1890: only three men survived. Inside the wall lie the captain and the officers; outside, the sailors.
You reach it by a dirt track from Cape Vilán, seven kilometres, or on foot along the PR-G 158 path. Drive slowly, and if it has rained hard consider walking instead.
25 min to the next stop · 16 km
Amadalvarez — CC BY-SA 3.0 (Wikimedia Commons)culture
Two tiny fishing hamlets. In Camelle, Man, a German who settled on the breakwater, lived for forty years naked and built a museum of stone sculptures facing the sea. The Prestige oil spill took it all in November 2002, and he died just a few weeks later; in the village they say it was of grief.
Part of his sculptures remain, along with a house-museum holding his work. It is a local story well known across Galicia and almost unknown outside it.
35 min to the next stop · 24 km
Óscar (xindilo/fotosderianxo) — CC BY-SA 2.0 (Wikimedia Commons)viewpoints
The end of the route and one of the widest town beaches in Galicia, with the fishing village on one side and a kilometre and a half of sand on the other. On the headland stands the chapel of Santa Rosa, and a kilometre away the Beach of Glass, covered in sea-polished glass where a dump once stood.
The Beach of Glass is the result of decades of rubbish that the Atlantic turned into something beautiful. Do not take the glass away: it is what makes the place what it is.
This getaway is in the app, day by day, with every stop on the map, the drives between them and where to sleep, and the option to save it for when there is no signal.
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