Finisterre

October 08, 2014

Finisterre

(10/02/14)

After spending 3.5 days walking from Santiago, we can now say we officially-officially made it to end of the Camino. YAY!

The name of the town, Finisterre, translates to Lands-End or "End of the World" (Mom and I keep singing the REM song "Its the End of the World as We Know it").

Pre- Christopher Columbus, it was believed that Finisterre really was the end of the world! Obviously this no longer holds true, but for us, it was the end of our journey.

The hike out to Finisterre was quite nice. Less than 10% of the pilgrims who journey to Santiago continue on to Finisterre. The trail has less infrastructure than the rest of the camino (albuergues, cafés, etc), but the lack of pilgrims made the trail really peaceful.

A beautiful village along the way.

Lots of foggy mornings as we got closer to the ocean (photo credit to my Mom).

These are called horreos and they are everywhere in Galacia. Back in the day they were used to store grain in (elevated to avoid critters). Today they are more decorative.

On the second to last day we got our first peeks of the Atlantic Ocean! It was so exciting to see that the "end was in site." Below is one of our first views...

After 3.5 days we made it to Finisterre. The last day was only a 7 mile hike, but it was one of my favorite days of the whole trip. The scenery was just spectacular!!

First views of Finisterre (in the way off distance).

Beautiful lagoons we hiked by!

Mom on the home stretch ( still 2k to go...but all via beach :).

We had reserved a simple, inexpensive room online, and much to our surprise we had a balcony with ocean views!! It was stunning.

After arriving we went to get our Finisterre compestela...certifying we'd walked from Santiago to Finisterre. (this whole Camino is pretty compestela crazy, but I actually really liked the design of this one).

We spent the next day relaxing on the beaches. Lots of wind and sand everywhere, but so much beauty, it was hard to believe my eyes!

The town was nice. We expected more to be happening, but it was quite relaxed. A fairly simple village- lots of locals fishing and pilgrims hanging out.

Last night we hiked out to the lighthouse on the end of the cape to watch the sun set and burn our socks. Its a long standing tradition to burn something that has come with you the whole way. People in front of us were burning all sorts of nice things- shoes, shirts, etc. My budget allowed me to burn my socks. Haha.