Ever Been to the Worlds End? Try Cabo Fisterra

With regards to the entire Spanish tourist industry Northern Spain and Galicia especially have been very much a hidden treasure and hidden within lies a further particular treasure called Cabo Fisterra.

Of all of the autonomous regions of Spain it is understandable given its location that Galicia is considered the most remote and therein lies the charm of Cabo Fisterra hidden away longing to be discovered.

The traditional concept of Galicia was always that it was supposedly a poor agricultural region and as such the economy would not be the easiest to modernize yet one of the fasted growing sub sectors within the Galician Economy is tourism and it is this very real relationship with its historical past that give the region its particular appeal.

The cultural and language origins of Galicia are very much rooted within the Celtic family of communities found elsewhere in North West Europe and has led to Galicia always having a sense of looking outwards from their regional base as opposed to looking inwards towards the rest of Spain.

Because of its location and partisan traditions Galicia was always fairly inward looking having managed to survive throughout the centuries without ever really been conquered by anybody and this degree of fierce independence has lasted and developed down through the centuries.

In what has been a mountain to climb slowly but surely Galicia is now trying to manage successfully the twin track of its regional lifestyle with a much more modern society and thankfully this appears to have had very positive results with regards to tourism with little sign of negative effects..

The term Cabo Fisterra translated into English is Cape Finisterre and means roughly “Worlds End”. Back in the days of the flat earth society and various folks this was considered to be the veritable edge of the world (what they thought was over the horizon heaven alone knows but that perhaps was it?).

Back in the middle ages this was considered to be the most westerly part of continental Europe though later on more accurate surveys pointed out that the most Western part of Europe actually lies much further south in Portugal.

The town of Fisterra actually makes quite a wind swept small fishing port and there are a few facilities here to cater for the passing tourist and certainly those heading for Cabo Fisterra which lies a few kilometres west. It is ironic that actually the most westerly part of Spain lies a few kilometres north but when it comes to folklore and history why let the truth get in the way of a good story.

It probably old stems from a multitude of things. Firstly you have the actual geographical location and let’s be honest there are very few things more dramatic in landscape terminology than jutting rock outcrops into a wild sea and then you have the name which literally comes from the Latin “End of the World”.

There is a small bar on the cape head itself and tourists can stay at the “pousada” on the headland.

Nearby is the Iglesia de Santa Maria de las Arenas which actually is the last point on the Way of St James and is where pilgrims symbolically and traditionally burn the clothes they wore in their pilgrimage as some sort of closure of the entire event.