The end of the world is not far away. Once you get to northern Spain and find the bar in the lighthouse.
Pepe stood aside to let me admire his optics. He stocks all the usual Spanish suspects.
Most of his optics are one litre. But one stood out in the middle of the bar. Not behind it. It was three metres tall and one wide. And it didn’t contain any alcohol. Only prisms.
Pepe is the barman of the world’s only lighthouse bar at Cap Vilan in Galicia. Spain’s first electric lighthouse was built in 1896 and is part of north-west Spain’s new “Lighthouse Way.”
There are seven lighthouses on the “Camino Dos Faros”. Naringa ( at 1997, the newest), the 1920 Ronando overlooking Corme and Laxe and named after the word for angry-sounding waves, the 1920 Laxe , Muxia and Cap Tourinan ( the most westerly point of Spain).
The Lighthouse Way joins villages like Pontesco, Malpica, Ninons, Muxia, Arou and Nemina.
Near Vila is the English Cemetery. One hundred and seventy-five sailors from the HMS Serpent, mostly naval cadets out of Plymouth, were drowned in 1890 in the “Mare Tenebrosum” (dark sea) and are buried by the beach at Camarinas. Along with victims of the “Iris Hull” disaster of 1883. Passing ships still fire off salutes over what is now called “The Serpent’s Shallows”.
Since the fifteenth century, there have been more than 800 shipwrecks, one major spill (The 2002 “Prestige” disaster) and several thousand deaths in the waters around the north-west coast of Spain. Not just British, Russian and French mariners and Barbary pirates shipping everything from coal, cement and sunflower seeds to slaves. But Galicians too. There are simple standing stone homages to the “percebeiros” who lost their lives fishing for gooseneck barnacles among the granite outcrops and swirling currents of the outlying islands.
In Galicia. fishermen’s wives are still called, “Viuvas dos vivos” ( widows of the living). Gooseneck barnacles now fetch from 200-300Euros per kilo. Four fishermen die each year feeding their families.
Along the beaches and cliff-tops around the scenic shoulder of Spain are gravestones and memorial statues. Some, little piles of round, Atlantic-flattened pebbles. Others, high crosses. There are cliff carvings too, their inscriptions worn away by the deadly winds.
These “crucerios” all commemorate the ships dashed against the rocks of Punta Boi and the sailors washed up on the beaches of Reira and Trece along Galicia’s notorious “Costa da Muerte”(Coast of Death) and treacherous “Ruta dos Naufraxos” (Route of Shipwrecks ).
The 200km “Lighthouse Way take you to the end of the world. Or, very nearly. On it , you always close to death.
It takes you, your sturdy boots and “Trek-rite” hiking poles around an infamously dangerous and famously scenic coastline, around headlands, past wind and turbot farms, through dunes, over long white-sand “praias” ( fifty 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”- firth-like inlets, long estuaries and drowned valleys.
Seeing crosses all the time. “Treskillions” or “triskele” abound in Galicia, the three interlocked spirals reminding you of the Iberian Peninsula’s Celtic and pre-Celtic roots. They are found not only on clifftops, in churches and cemeteries but also above the region’s iconic “horroes” or “cabaceiros” ( staddle stone granary houses raised on pillars).
Galicia’s claim to Celtic status rests on such ancient motifs and petroglyphs, the facial features and short stature of the people, fortified settlements called “castros” such as Santa Tecla in A Guarda, the “anta” or “dolmens” ( burial chambers) of Dombate and “menhirs”. Like the Lapa de Gargnans.
As well as bagpipes and Y-chromozones.
Galicians, although they have no Celtic language, consider their region the seventh Celtic country after Scotland, Wales, Brittany, Ireland, Cornwall and the Isle of Man.
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. His statue guards the ancient lighthouse.
Galicia is justly famous for its restaurants. Like Alberto Prieto’s “El de Alberto” in A Coruna and the waterfront Alborada (Dawn) at A Guarda with 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).
Perhaps the best restaurant is Sefa and Francisco Insua’s “O Fragon” at San Martino de Arriba, Finisterre. Which 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 ).
Walkers stay in family-run guesthouses like Playa de Laxe and Pension Rural As Eiras in Lires. The best places to based -if you are not on an organized 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.
Everyone visiting Galicia 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 1706 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. In acts of purification , pilgrims burn their boots on the headland.
Walkers of the Lighthouse Way tend to have a beer overlooking “Gentulo”, the Devil’s Rock. And sun worship. Celt nor not , it’s hard to celebrate completing the best and toughest coastal walk in Europe. Your quasi-Celtic “muineira” jig may not be as sprightly as you may wish.
Because it’s hard to River Dance when your feet have lost it and death has nearly got the better of you. So forget the acts of fertility too.
Over a beer – he does not serve Eddystone Rocks cocktails yet- Pepe the lighthouse barman told me how lighthouse keepers had to wear linen so as not to scratch or fog the light. And that once lanterns were lit by whale oil, olive oil, lard and even “colza” wild cabbage oil.
He beamed at me. “ If you could not hear land you could smell it! Sometimes hear it.”
It was some party. I asked Pepe if he had many regulars. He looked around and nodded. “ Yes. We have many lens here.”
My eyes began to rotate and shutter and my cheek began to emit bright light. I started to experience chromatic distortions, visual aberrations and image stabilization issues.
Pepe beamed again. His teeth lit up the way and pointed me in the right direction. The gents aren’t too hard to find in a lighthouse. You soon find safe haven even if you go the wrong way.
So soon my eyes were focussing on the same convergence point and I made room for more of Pepe’s optics.
Contact: On Foot Holidays, www.onfootholidays.co.uk, 01722 322652, walks@onfootholidays.co.uk
Direct URL to this holiday: https://www.onfootholidays.co.uk/routes/galicia-lighthouse-way/