These range from 4,000-year-old stone carvings beside the Camino trail to mámoa and dolmen burial mounds and tombs comprising large megalithic stones dotting the desolate landscape. The southern tip of the peninsula marks the ultimate end of the Camino ĭespite the best efforts of the church, the path to Finisterre and the peninsula on which it lies are littered with reminders of this pre-Christian world. The path to it was walked by pagan pilgrims for centuries before the dawn of Christianity, after which the Christian church leaders appropriated the pagan route – as they did with many of the pagan festivals – for their own ends. The name Finisterre comes from the Latin finis terrae, which means ‘end of the Earth’. In ancient times Finisterre was viewed as the end of the known world. Their destination is the small fishing town of Finisterre and the surrounding cape, which exists as the mysterious pagan sibling lurking in the shadows of the Camino trail and its Christian virtues. While Santiago de Compostela marks the official end of the famous Camino de Santiago pilgrimage, with the purported remains of St James the apostle in the basement of its cathedral, a minority of hardy souls continue for another 86 kilometres to the Galician coast. Now dark clouds were scudding across the Galician hills in the distance and the only sound I could hear was the wind blowing – in an accusatory manner, it seemed – through the trees beside me. Only two days before I’d been in the celebratory environs of Santiago de Compostela with its endless arrivals of jubilant pilgrims. It was starting to feel rather spooky on the pathway to Finisterre.
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