Costa da Morte

The Costa da Morte is the westernmost stretch of Galicia, where the Atlantic coast meets a shoreline of cliffs, headlands and rias running from Cabo de San Adrián north of Malpica to the Ría de Muros and Noia in the south. The name is not a literary device: the seabed in this sector accumulates hundreds of documented shipwrecks since the Middle Ages, the result of westerly winds, subsurface currents and the absence of natural sheltered harbours along many stretches. The sea mist that frequently settles over the horizon in summer reinforces the sense of an extreme coast. The lighthouses — Cabo Vilán, active since 1896 and Spain's first to run on electricity; Punta Nariga; and Cabo Touriñán, the Iberian Peninsula's westernmost point — are the markers that structure the coastal landscape.

The underlying geology explains the harshness of the coastal profile. The rock is mainly Hercynian granite, outcropping in large rounded masses shaped by differential erosion and in platforms that drop abruptly into the sea. At Carnota lies Galicia's longest beach: 7.5 kilometres of unbroken sand framed between the Monte Pindo — the Celtic Olympus of local oral tradition — and the Ría de Corcubión. Praia de Carnota, Praia de Laxe and Praia de Traba are the most extensive and visited. The beaches of Trece, Nemiña and Rostro are more enclosed, reached by narrow tracks that limit visitor flow. The Traba dunes, the most extensive active dune system on the Costa da Morte, support a specific psammophilous flora including Artemisia crithmifolia and Otanthus maritimus.

Artisanal fishing and shellfish gathering have structured coastal community economies for centuries. The fishing guilds of Laxe, Camariñas, Muxía and Cee manage barnacle, sea urchin and mussel beds supplying markets across Galicia and northern Spain. The percebes of the Costa da Morte, harvested manually by percebeiros on surf-washed cliff platforms during periods of relative calm, command reference prices in the fish markets of Santiago de Compostela and Vigo. This bond between community, sea and fishery resource is visible in the ports themselves: the harbours of Malpica, Laxe and Camariñas maintain daily activity from artisanal vessels and catches being landed.

The Camino de Santiago along the Costa da Morte — also known as the Muxía-Fisterra Way — connects Santiago de Compostela with the two most important Atlantic sanctuaries of the Jacobean cult: the Santuario da Virxe da Barca in Muxía, its façade directly facing the sea, and Cabo Fisterra, the medieval pilgrims' 'end of the world'. The stage between Cee and Muxía partly follows the coastal path with open Atlantic views. Beyond the pilgrimage route, the Camariñas area holds some of the most valued coastal walking in Galicia, with the PR-G 110 trail running along the cliffs between Praia do Ézaro and Cabo Vilán lighthouse.