Galicia is mountains and stunning beaches, and proudly juts out into the ocean like the prow of Spain. It has its own language, Galego, and a proud distinct culture with Celtic roots, like much of the western seaboard of Europe, including Brittany, Cornwall, Wales and my own native Scotland. Indeed whilst Galego is a Romance language similar to Spanish and Portuguese it has some words that come from the old Celtic tongue that used to hold sway here.
Further signs of the links between Scotland and Galicia can be seen in the fact that the bagpipes (known as the "gaita") can also be found here, and the rhythms and skirls of Galician folk music wouldn't sound out of place at a ceilidh, a Scottish knees up.
There are also Celtic festivals in Galicia, and bag pipe playing friends of mine have attended these, resplendent in their kilts, so hopefully, at the start of the journey at least, it won’t be such a shock for people to see a kilted pilgrim come wandering over the horizon.
Estaca de Bares to Melide
For the first leg of my journey through Galicia I need to get down from Estaca de Bares to a small town called Melide, which lies on the Camino to Santiago, and from where I can pick up the marked trail that will lead me to distant shining Seville.
Google Earth image showing Estaca de Bares to Melide, in noticeably green Galicia.
In theory once I reach Melide things should be fairly simple from a route finding point of view (how I know that these words will come back to haunt me…) But first I need to get to Melide, and there isn’t a marked Camino from Estaca de Bares to get there.
I looked up websites on walks and found nothing terribly useful which would link the two places. From Google Earth it was clear the area was pretty wild, with small villages dotted around areas of hilly forested land. I could of course walk through by road, but where possible I would prefer to be on paths through wilder places. Not only is it pleasanter, but it’s safer as well to be away from cars. Additionally another down side to walking on roads is that the tarmac seems to be far more punishing to the joints and muscles than almost any other surface.
So, I bought maps for the area, which showed a plethora of paths and routes. It also appears that there are lots of wind farms on these isolated hills, which are served by maintenance tracks. But despite all these trails in the area it still wasn’t at all clear how to connect these to make an efficient route, or in fact whether I would have access to any given path.
From digging around the web I stumbled across the cheery website for the Club Montaña Ferrol (Ferrol Mountain Club). Ferrol is one of the nearest cities to this area, so I sent them an e-mail hoping they might have some advice for me.
What luck. The president Xan, got back the very next day, to inform me that there is in fact an ancient route, dating from more than 4,000 years ago, that will take me the first 40 kilometers. This route connects Estaca de Bares to a place called As Pontes de Rodriguez, home to a large coal power plant. Not only did this prehistoric civilisation leave this route, they also left more than 80 ancient monoliths along the way.
From As Pontes Xan then suggested a number of paths that link up and will take me all the way to Melide.
I am incredibly grateful to Xan and the Ferrol Mountain club. If ever your faith in humans is somewhat lacking, then a project like this is incredibly good for you, the way people respond so generously to a request for help is deeply touching. Muchísimas gracias to them.
So the first section of the route is mapped out, but one small thing Xan mentioned is that I’m likely to be, “alone with the wolves” up on these ancient paths through the deserted Galician hills, this he explained is a metaphor for being very alone, although he did then go on to mention that of course there actually are wolves roaming around up there…
(See this link to a video of them - wolves)
Of course in reality the wolves are far more frightened of us than we should be of them, so I’ve nothing to be worried about, but the word “wolf” does still provokes a powerful human reaction.
Interestingly it’s a full moon when I set out, so there could be a lot of howling up in them there wild Galician hills.
Interestingly it’s a full moon when I set out, so there could be a lot of howling up in them there wild Galician hills.
