Tuesday 7 May 2024 – The observant among you will notice – because you read this thing daily, don’t you? – that there was no entry for Monday 6 May. And yet, given the apparently improving weather, you have a perfect right to expect a load of photos and my usual amusing commentary to accompany them. We did walk yesterday, and indeed took photos, but force majeure has made it difficult for me to update you until now. During Sunday night, I was stricken with what my brother, in his blog pages, might call “the collywobbles”. I am less euphemistic.
Reader, I got the shits.
My fault, I suppose, for eating a salad, when one is continually enjoined to avoid raw vegetables when travelling in the more suspect parts of The Foreign, but I had let my guard down, based, I suppose, on the seven weeks of safely eating salads in northern Spain when we walked the Camino Francés.
I didn’t feel too bad at the outset, so we decided to walk to Finisterre, partially on the basis of the weather forecast
and the view out of our window.
The route out of Corcubión was steep; we took a small Brierley recommended variation, which took us past the Capela de Santo Antonio
and a very appealing view back over the town.
We passed another couple of lavadoiros, again showing little evidence of modern usage
and, as we breasted the rise, we caught our first view of the lighthouse which marks the end of the Camino.
The next village on our route was Estorde, where we saw a couple of unusual horreos, one painted white
and one that was actually in use, as its door was open.
I suspect that horreos, where they are usable, are like garages in the UK – never used for their originally-intended purpose.
Shortly after, we reached a town called Sardiñeiro, which was not at all crowded, but did have a couple of engaging points: one very nicely-decorated house
and someone’s remarkable garage.
Its owner bade us come in for a chat, but we demurred, mainly because we were near a coffee stop, which was, to be honest, a more alluring prospect.
After Sardiñeiro, our path was in decent condition
but was, once again, uphill, and I was beginning to labour at this point as a result of the depredations of my digestive system. There were some nice views such as this of the town of Finisterre,
this of an attractive little cove,
and some quirky things beside the path
(I assume that some kind soul left this for us peregrinos; unsurprisingly, I really wasn’t attracted to this paella) but they failed to lift my spirits much. We made our very slow way past the sweeping beach at the top of the Finisterre bay, the Playa de Llagosteira,
with its unusual installation, dediated to garnering public support for keeping the beach clean,
and toiled along a very nicely-laid pathway through what might have been everglades or might just have been waterlogged land, I’m not quite sure which.
We soon reached Finisterre, or Fisterra as it’s called in the Galician language (Galego, if you’re from Galicia, or Gallego if from the rest of Spain) and discovered that it’s a great deal more extensive than I’d realised. It seemed to take for ever at my enforced slow pace, but we eventually reached our rather nice and very boutiquey hotel, Banco Azul.
Fortunately, they had a room ready for us, despite it being only just after midday, and even more fortunately it was on the ground floor, as I really don’t think I had the energy left to hoick my suitcase up any stairs. The 12km had taken us three-and-three-quarter hours, and I was done in, so spent the rest of the day trying to recover. Jane went out though to get our official certificates to show we have completed the walk from Santiago de Compostella to Finisterre.
This left us with just the 3km to cover to the “0 km” marker today. We could, I suppose, have taken a taxi, but I thought I felt well enough to walk it, despite it being almost ceaselessly uphill.
Shortly after we set out, we passed the Igrexa de Santa María das Areas
which, to our surprise, was open, so looked in. Almost all of the small local churches we’ve passed in northern Spain have been what we’ve come to call “Spanish Open”, i.e. closed. But here there was a lady volunteer who was part of a team keeping the church open in the mornings. It’s an attractive interior,
with the chapel of Christ of the Golden Beard
with the usual cemetery at the back.
(and it was an opportunity for me to take a rest, as I was labouring even more intensely than yesterday).
There are a couple of other things of note on the short journey to the cape: a pilgrim statue
and a “fishermen’s cemetery”, with several cavities that, presumably, enable a fisherman to be buried in view of the sea.
A less momentous installation awaited us as we neared our destination for the day.
and then we had arrived
at the famous lighthouse at the end of the cape,
where one can find the 0 km marker
various symbolic statuary such as the boot and the cross
and, the Lord be thankit,
our hotel, O Semaforo, which is small but perfectly-formed after being modified from its original purpose as a marine observatory. It’s also part, we suspect, of a group which also includes the Banco Azul. Again, fortunately, they allowed us into our room with minimal waiting around.
There’s a lot to see here, but I was in no condition to be out and about at this stage, so Jane took herself off to find food and to refresh her acquaintance with the site, which we’d visited last Autumn, only by bus. Above are some of the photos she took. On that occasion I hadn’t got my drone with me, but today I did, so, having rested, I whizzed it up to capture an aerial view.
That’s it for Phase I, then; we’ve reached Finisterre and our onward journey takes us to Muxia, further up the coast, an alternative end point of the Camino, also with its own 0 km marker. Given my condition, I doubt that I’ll be able to walk it, but we have A Plan to ensure that you miss a minimum of the Camino scenery. Keep your eyes peeled on these pages to find out how it unfolds.
