Lights fantastic

Picking my way across the rocks that separate four sandy beaches, I emerge on to a defined grassy path heading towards a walled enclosure. A stone cross marks the entrance to a tiny chapel at its centre. Inside, three plaques bear long lists of names.

This is the English Cemetery, a graveyard for nearly 200 sailors whose boats were shipwrecked off the adjacent coast in the late 19th century. It’s a moving reminder of why this stretch of shore is known as the Costa da Morte, or Coast of Death.

In the 1800s, for ships heading to the Mediterranean from northern Europe, cleaving to the Spanish coast was the most direct route – but also very dangerous. Vessels often came to grief off the reefs and rocks, and the name – initially adopted by British seafarers – has stuck.

It’s still a perilous stretch of coast. And it’s easy to see why, as I hike along the coastal path and look out on a rough and rocky sea.

Lighting the way

Following the 19th-century shipwrecks, 14 lighthouses were built, which now form pinpoints on the map of one of Spain’s newest walking trails. The Camino dos Faros (Way of the Lighthouses) was the brainchild of six childhood friends who, in later life, decided to create a route that would take walkers around the peninsulas, bays and estuaries of coastal Galicia.

The way, which opened in 2012, begins in the former whaling port of Malpica on the north coast, where whalebones were used as beams in houses. It runs for 200km/120 miles to Fisterra – or Finis Terrae (the end of the world), as the Romans named this westerly point of their empire. In this area, both the landscape and weather are variable. On some days you find yourself strolling along a deserted, sunny beach, on others picking your way around an exposed clifftop in a sea of fog.

Click on photos to enlarge

Fittingly, the identity of the six friends also remains mostly shrouded in mist. Their legacy isn’t personal recognition, but the tangible fact of a trail that’s opened up a previously less-trodden corner of Spain to eager hikers.

Seafood, snakes and snoring

Leaving Malpica, I head along the coast, passing the chapel of St Adrián. With striking similarities to Ireland’s St Patrick, Adrián is said to have ended a plague of snakes by stamping on one of them, instantly killing the rest.

From here, the path itself snakes around one of many peninsulas en route, affording views of the Sisargas Islands, host to colonies of black-headed gulls, kittiwakes and one of the oldest lighthouses on the trail. The Faro de las Islas Sisargas was built in 1853, almost 150 years before the next lighthouse I encounter – the modern Faro de Punta Nariga, the base of which is designed to mimic the bow of a ship.

Prior to this trip, I have to admit I was sceptical about the allure of the lighthouses themselves. Sure, they were useful markers on a coastal route but, naively, I hadn’t expected each one to yield a tiny piece of history or a gem of a story.

On my second day of walking, the itsy (11m/36ft tall) Faro do Roncudo provides not only a spectacular setting, with views across to Laxe, but also a wonderfully onomatopoeic name. As I stand on the rocks and listen to the rumble of the waves, I can hear the roncudo – or snore – of an old man lying on his back.

Leaving the lovely town of Laxe, with its beautiful dune-backed beach and appetising clutch of fish restaurants (where I dined on razor clams and sea bass), there are more reminders of what put the morte into this costa. Just round the headland beside the Faro de Laxe, the haunting statue A Espera, or The Waiting, depicts a woman, babe in arms, scanning the horizon for her seafaring husband.

Green imp and a German hermit

The terrain along the way feels similar to the coastal paths of Devon and Cornwall. The walking, while not hard, is challenging at times, with some twisty ups and downs, rocky paths and little-too-close-to-the-edge-for-comfort ledges. But it’s possible to avoid some of the trickier sections with alternative inland routes. The Camino is marked by a series of green-painted arrows or dots, which, in this corner of ‘Green Spain’, aren’t always easy to spot.

On the Punta das Pías – a spectacular rocky promontory between Laxe and Arou – I search up, down and all around for a guiding green dot. In places, I find intriguing green-stencilled, four-toed footprints on the rocks instead. These are ‘Traski’ prints, belonging to the mythical green imp who symbolises the Lighthouse Way and guides me through a spectacular field of glacial erratics. The giant, weathered boulders have eroded over time to take on almost sculptural qualities. I discern a wild boar, a coiled cobra, a sleeping sea lion and a statue of King Kong before reaching the quiet port of Camelle, where another sculptural delight and a tale of tragic loss await me.

On a tiny hilltop beside the harbour arm sits the abandoned hut of the German Hermit: a tall, thin young man who arrived in Camelle in the early 1960s and fell in love with a local girl. When she broke his heart, he retreated from life, gave up his clothes in favour of a loincloth and grew his own vegetables. He also created a garden of Gaudí-esque sculptures, using rocks and debris from the sea.

But in 2002, the Costa da Morte claimed its most recent victim. When the oil tanker Prestige sank off the Galician coast, it spilled 60,000 tonnes of oil into the water, desecrating the coastline and causing widespread loss of wild and marine life. It also destroyed the German Hermit’s garden and sculptures. A month later, he was found dead in his hut. Locals say he died of a second broken heart. His was the only human loss of life in Spain’s biggest environmental disaster.

Celtic culture

Although it cleaves to the Coast of Death, the Camino dos Faros is very much a route that celebrates Galician life and identity. Bound by the sea, Galicians regard themselves as Celts, and as I listened to local music played in a bar in Laxe, I might almost have been in Ireland. In many ways, Galicia has more in common with the Atlantic communities of Brittany, Cornwall and the Emerald Isle than the Mediterranean. Its climate and geology are similar, giving rise to green fern-clad promontories, pine forests and blooming hydrangeas.

A huge turbot farm flanks the base of one of the most prominent lighthouses along the route – the dramatically situated Faro de Cabo Vilán, sitting on 100m/300ft-high cliffs. Built in the 1890s, at that time it had one of the most powerful lights in the world. A nearby wind farm provides a striking visual juxtaposition, while the breeze that turns the turbines makes walking on a hot day refreshingly cooler.

Caminos combine

From the fishing port of Camariñas, the route winds inland around the shores of the Rio Grande estuary before eventually merging with one of Spain’s most famous Caminos, the Camino de Santiago, as it continues beyond Santiago de Compostela to Muxía and then Fisterra. Here it is peppered with calm, sheltered, sandy bays, and I stop for a swim before heading on to Muxía.

Beyond the town, on a slim peninsula, stands the Faro de Muxía, beside the pilgrim chapel of Santuario da Virxe de Barca. When I arrive, a pilgrim mass is in progress and I slip in – feeling a little fraudulent, since I’ve walked for just six days, rather than the 30-plus on the big Camino.

Walk it!

Lizzie Enfield travelled as a guest of Ramble Worldwide (rambleworldwide.co.uk). Its 10-night, self-guided Camino dos Faros trip runs between April and October and costs from £879, including breakfasts, accommodation, one dinner, full route notes and a guide app (rambleworldwide.co.uk/europe/spain/camino-dos-faros-galicias-lighthouse-way).

Reach Galicia by flying into A Coruña or Santiago-Rosalía de Castro airports, or take the ferry to Santander or Bilbao and drive along Spain’s northern coast.

For a detailed breakdown of the route and maps, see caminodosfaros.com/en/

A comprehensive guidebook, Walking the Camino dos Faros, is published by Cicerone (£14.99, ISBN 978 1852849719). Available here