Negreira

The lush farmland along the way to Negreira

I had three guesses- Denny's, Middle Earth, and the end of the world. Hmm, end of the world is closest. I started walking this morning to Fisterra (Finisterra in English)-it literally means Land's End or end of the earth. Finisterra was the westernmost point of continental Europe and thought for thousands of years to be the end of the known world.

Fisterra is 60 miles west of Santiago and I walked the first 14 miles today. If time and weather permit, I plan to take four days to reach Fisterra, then another day (18 miles) to walk along the Atlanticcoast to another fishing village, Muxia. The weather may interfere as rain is forecast for the next four days, so I may cut it short if I start getting too wet.

While Santiago was the end of the camino for Christian pilgrims, Fisterra's connection is with it's pagan and Celtic past and was already known as the westernmost point centuries before Romans, Christians, Visigoths, and Moors swept through Spain. The pagan altar to the sun, Ars Solis, celebrated the sun's setting in the west, into the Tir-na-nóg, the Land of Eternal Youth.

So bear with me a few more days as I continue my walk to the ocean.