Isolated and Off-the-beaten Path: Finisterre, Spain

The Romans believed it to be an end of the known world. The name Finisterre in latin means “Land’s End.”

I spent three days there because I misread a bus route, but came to fall in love with this little fishing town at the end of the earth.

I was living in Spain at the time and studying Spanish when I took off for a three month trek across Spain. As my travels took me to the North, I gravitated westward towards Galicia. When I heard about Finesterre, the northwestern corner of Spain, I decided to go and check it out. I bought a bus ticket from Santiago de Compostela and my plan was to spend one night and head back to my travels.

But fate intervened and I misread the bus schedule and was “stuck” at the end of the world for three days.

I discovered a quiet little fishing town with very proud and hard working and friendly people. I was welcomed at the local veterans center for a meal by some retired Spanish sailors.

I enjoyed the isolation and the solitude of this place.

I enjoyed hiking along the Costa de la Morte (coast of the dead), so named because of all the shipwrecks along its treacherous rocky shore.

And I thought about all the long lost sailors from antiquity to modern day Spanish fisherman. Then I went to a local bar and had a drink in their honor.