In Galicia, fishermen’s wives are still called, “Viuvas dos vivos” (widows of the living). Four fishermen die each year feeding their families. The region in north-west Spain has a deadly reputation.
The 200km Lighthouse Way (Camino Dos Faros) takes you to the steep cliffs and capes coastal area around Spain’s infamous “Coast of Death” (Costa da Morte) from the Tower of Hercules in A Coruna to the end of the world. Or very nearly.
It takes you around an infamously dangerous and famously scenic coastline, around headlands above crashing waves and ferocious currents, past wind and turbot farms, through dunes, over long white-sand praias (beaches) like Mar de Fora, into caves (furnas), past dornas fishing boats, pre-Christian ritual places, oscillating stones and shaking logans (pedras de abalar), bornas outdoor ovens, pallozas (rye-straw huts), palleros haylofts, the tombs of Celtic crone goddesses and through fields of blond cows, horses, Angel Tear flowers, furze and gorse and across rivers and around rias, which are firth-like inlets, long estuaries and drowned valleys.
Day One
Driving around Galicia is easily done by car. But it can take longer once you found out how wonderful the restaurants and scenery are.
A Coruna is the natural starting point. The rose compass set into the earth near A Coruna’s 2nd 57m Torre of Hercules depicts all Celtic nations. Galicia included. The world’s oldest Roman lighthouse may have been one of Hercules labours after he slew a giant and named Coruna after a lover, Curia. It may also have been built by King Breogan, ruler of Galicia, when Coruna was known as Brigantium. The Coast of Death actually begins in the village of Mulpica. And the best place to eat in A Coruna is Alberto Prieto’s El de Alberto.
Day Two
There are seven lighthouses on the Camino Dos Faros. Naringa is the newest, built in 1997, the 1920 Ronando overlooking Corme and Laxe and named after the word for angry-sounding waves, Mexia, with its church of Virgin a Barca (saint of the sea) and Cap Tourinan, the most westerly point of Spain.
Littered with cross and memorials in the shape of stones and piled pebbles, the Coast of Death dates back to medieval times. Since the 14th century there have been over 600 reported shipwrecks.
Crucerios commemorate the ships dashed against the rocks of Punta Boi and the sailors washed up on the beaches of Reira and Trece along the notorious coastline which is also known as the Ruta dos Naufraxos (Route of Shipwrecks).
In 1890, the HMS Sergent sank with 160 English sailors on board. Just three survived. Close by the English cemetery (Cemiterio dos Ingleses) is the country’s first electric lighthouse, the 1896 Vilan lighthouse with its 28-mile beam. It’s still inhabited and has a bar and a permanent exhibition of old optics. Also visit Duna de Monte Branco, the highest sand dune in Europe.
The Lighthouse Way joins villages like Pontesco, Malpica, Ninons, Camarinas, Muxia, Arou and Nemina. If you are doing it by car you can detour to the Ezaro waterfall at Dumbria at the foot of Mount Pindo (the Celtic Olympus).
Waterfront marisco (seafood) restaurants like Alborada (Dawn) at A Guarda offer specialities like lobster and rice, scallops ventrescas (belly flesh) and piquillo peppers with cod. Elsewhere, it’s Lubina con navajas (sea bass with razor clams), Mariscades (shellfish medley) Tarta de Santiago (almond cake), pig’s ears, lacon con grelos (ham and turnip heads) and meat pies (empanadas). Another good restaurant is Sefa.
Walkers can stay in family-run guesthouses like Playa de Laxe and Pension Rural As Eiras in Lires. The best places to be based if you are not on an organised tour are the Serotel Blue in A Coruna, the Parador Turismo in Pontevedra or the Parador in Baiona, a manor house set in a medieval walled fortress on the Monterreal peninsula looking out over the Cies islands where Columbus’s Pinta arrived in 1493 with news of the New World. There is a replica in the port.
Every July there is a popular pilgrimage (Romania) to the Near Death Festival and the tiny L’Iglesia de San Jose church in As Neves near the Portuguese border. Three thousand attended this year’s event to give praise to the patron saint of resurrection, Santa Marta de Ribarteme , sister of Lazarus.
Those who have survived death in the last year, either through illness or accidents, are paraded in open coffins.
The Near Death Festival probably began in the 12th century. Some think it was an attempt by the Catholic church to adapt to deeply ingrained pagan rites. There are always empty coffins standing in the church. Those who take part in procession donate them to the local community. They are for people who can’t afford to be buried. So, they can “die well”.
Day Three
Everyone ends up in Finisterre which the Romans considered the end of the world (finis-terra). In fact, the most westerly point of continental Europe is Cabo da Roco in Portugal.
Overlooking the Robeira islands, the lighthouse was built in 1853 and its Semaforo (traffic light) goes back to 1879. It overlooks the spot where, in 1596, 25 Spanish galleons went down in a storm leaving 1,706 dead. Now it has a fog siren called Vala Fisterra (the cow of Fisterra).
It is the final destination of the Way of St James, a 90 km walk inland from Santiago de Compostela. At Cabo de Fisterra you will find a mystical milestone reading “0,00 km”.
The Camino de Finisterre is the shortest camino and the only one that doesn’t end in Santiago de Compostela.
Must do things include burning all your clothes (or your boots), basking on Playa Corbeiro and staying up late enough to enjoy the Galician sunset. Which in midsummer is around midnight.
The best place to eat is O Fragon at San Martino de Arriba, Finisterre. It offers a seven-course tasting menu with accompanying Galician wines and rare Puco Feito dishes, meaning the pinnacle of homely, ill-favoured and rare, like Alina de escarapote fritida (fried scorpion fish wings). All for €70 per person. Provided you are fully clothed and well-shod.
On Foot Holidays offers walking holidays from £1,180 pp (based on two sharing): 10 nights (shorter versions also offered), 7 breakfasts, 1 evening meal, 3 picnic lunches, luggage transfers, taxis from/to Santiago or Coruna at the start and finish, local telephone support, personal itinerary, maps, GPS tracks, route directions and background information supplied in On Foot Holidays’ free navigation app and/or printed Walkers Pack. Flights and other transfers excluded. Available from April to November.
Fact Box:
For more information, please visit: www.onfootholidays.co.uk or call them on +44 (0)1722 322652, alternatively you can email them at walks@onfootholidays.co.uk. For more information on this particular holiday – Galicia: Lighthouse Way – please visit: www.onfootholidays.co.uk/routes. Vueling flies to Vigo and A Corunna: www.vueling.com.
Author Bio:
Kevin Pilley is a former professional cricketer and chief staff writer of PUNCH magazine. His humour, travel, food and drink work appear worldwide, and he has been published in over 800 titles.
Photographs courtesy of On Foot Holidays
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