One of the most famous things on the North coast of Lugo province is this beach called a praia das catedrais or cathedrals beach. Before I got to Ribadeo I wasn't really sure how I'd get there, because it's outside the town. From what I could find online, there were buses doing a tourist shuttle service only during the summer. I looked on google maps: it didn't seem terribly far away so I thought, "maybe I could just walk." Oh, one more thing. Every time I told someone I was thinking of visiting catedrais, they would always remind me, "don't forget, you have to go at low tide, or else you won't be able to see anything!" So a few days before arriving in Ribadeo I consulted an online tide calculator. Unfortunately the first low tide occurred before sunrise and the second one occurred after sunset. Sure, I could go at about 5:30 immediately before the early winter sunset, but this definitely complicated my plan of walking back to town.
When I got to Ribadeo I went to the tourism office and asked about ways of getting to the beach. I realized that the FEVE train had a stop like 5 minutes from the beach. Perfect! That made everything easier. But the guy in the office also told me that there were "routes" through the countryside-- like a ruta da costa that hugged the coast (and which was, with all the zigzags, extremely long), and a ruta das praias that led from Ribadeo to the different interesting beaches. I had been thinking about walking anyway, so this sounded good to me. I decided I'd walk there and take the train back. "The route is well marked," said the guy in the tourist office (it certainly was not well-marked).
When I got to Ribadeo I went to the tourism office and asked about ways of getting to the beach. I realized that the FEVE train had a stop like 5 minutes from the beach. Perfect! That made everything easier. But the guy in the office also told me that there were "routes" through the countryside-- like a ruta da costa that hugged the coast (and which was, with all the zigzags, extremely long), and a ruta das praias that led from Ribadeo to the different interesting beaches. I had been thinking about walking anyway, so this sounded good to me. I decided I'd walk there and take the train back. "The route is well marked," said the guy in the tourist office (it certainly was not well-marked).
This is right outside of Ribadeo. Below you can see men fishing in the violent coastal waves.
When I heard about "routes" I was kind of imagining a paved path along the coast, or maybe some little signs or symbols to tell me I was on the right track. I soon realized, however, that the "route" was nothing more than country highways, the kind of rural ones with occasional cars. There really were no signs. I threw out the maps but I kind of wish I still had them so that I could show how little I was going on: they basically had squiggly lines that you were supposed to interpret. Honestly it wasn't so bad; when I went through a town I'd try to find its name on my map to confirm I was going the right direction; in any case all I had to do was follow the coast directly West and I'd get there eventually.
Here is a marker for the Camiño/Camino de Santiago! The standard route is farther inland, but there is a coastal route as well.
I took the photo above because this was pretty much the only sign I saw
What you see above is called a hórreo and it is a sort of storage shed for foods or other materials that have to be conserved from humidity. It's elevated to keep it away from the moisture on the ground, and the sides are slotted to aerate what's inside. These are extremely typical of Galicia; they're always built more or less in the same shape, and you see them everywhere. Once you cross the border into Asturias they have a different style of hórreo, more square, like a little house.
Next up, the beaches
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