There is life after death – and it comes with shellfish and soft sand

The lesser-visited Costa da Morte in Galicia needs careful navigating. But the journey is more than worthwhile, says Paul Richardson

At a waterside restaurant on the Costa da Morte, in the far northwest corner of the Iberian Peninsula, I sat in the shade of a palm tree listening to the plish-plash of the waves as I made my way through a plate of scallops and a glass or two, or three, of apple-fresh albariño. Mine was one of just three tables for lunch. Across the water, a fishing boat chugged into Corme harbour. It was hard to know whether this sense of easeful quiet was normal, “new normal” or quite uncharacteristic: either way, it was doing me good.

The brand names attached to other bits of Spanish seaside – Sun Coast, White Coast, even Brave Coast (Costas del Sol, Blanca and Brava) – tend to have an attractive ring about them. “Coast of Death”, not so much. In fact, there are good reasons for the off-putting moniker, as I would discover during a recce of this glorious and little-traversed region of Galicia. And if it frightens off the Costa Blanca crowd, I say, so much the better.

As a holiday destination, Costa da Morte was never on most people’s mental GPS, but various things have happened in recent months to make me think a change is imminent. One is our current appetite for hassle-free sojourns in unspoilt natural environments where it’s easy to keep a healthy distance from your fellow man – all boxes that the Costa da Morte, with its vast sweeping beaches and scant human presence, ticks decisively.

Another is the Parador Costa da Morte, which opened mid-pandemic to a rapturous reception and 100 per cent occupancy. Anyone used to the slightly fusty, traditionalist style of Spain’s state-owned Paradores Nacionales will be as blown away by this addition to the chain as by a fresh, salt-laden gust of Atlantic wind, as Isabella Noble points out in her review, opposite.

Along the coast from the parador is the town of Muxía, stuck to the promontory like a limpet on a rock, and its great granite church facing out to the wind and waves – home of a muchvenerated local virgin, Our Lady of the Boat. That evening at sundown, I made my way over to the rocks below Our Lady’s church, said by superstitious Gallegos to be the remains of a stone boat in which the Virgin arrived for a meeting with St James. One of these rocks, the table-like Pedra dos Cadris, is believed to provide freedom from back pain, kidney disease and headaches for those who pass underneath it. I crawled under the stone for good measure, no health protection being de trop in these perilous times.

After lunch next day (octopus a feira, with olive oil and paprika, and a rich seafood-based rice at A de Loló in Muxía) I set off northwards along an intricate coastline where wind-whipped rocky outcrops gave way to sheltered inlets, wooded hills and some of the dreamiest beaches I’d seen in 30 years of roaming the Spanish coasts. At times, especially on the lonely peninsulas of Fisterra, Vilán and Touriñán, I picked up an end-of-the-world feeling that reminded me of Cornwall (but with better food and weather). Compared with any of Spain’s better-known costas, this one seemed blissfully empty. There were family-run seaside pensiones, chic cabin complexes and comfortable casas rurales to stay in, yet harbour towns such as Cee and Camelle seemed more preoccupied with shellfish collection and fishing, the life of the sea, than with bigging up a modest tourist sector mainly geared to Spanish staycationers.

Over four days in September, I pottered the 50-odd miles from Muros, at the southern end, to Malpica de Bergantiños in the far north, an hour’s drive from the fine city of A Coruña. If some of the coastal towns were poorly preserved and unprepossessing, others, such as Corcubión and Muxía, had a hard-working seaside charm. Where the road dipped inland, I caught glimpses of rural Galicia in the maize fields and the aroma of eucalyptus spreading from woods, the cows grazing on verdant pasture, and the ubiquitous stone granaries called hórreos, built high on pillars to fool the rats. The village gardens had banks of hydrangeas, whose flowers were the same pale blue as the sky. Wherever I went there was good, simple food to be eaten – the Costa da Morte’s shellfish, and its line-caught local fish, are peerless – and a welcome much more amiable than Galicia’s reputation for suspicion and reserve might have led me to expect.

As I journeyed, I racked up a shortlist of jaw-dropping beaches where, if the clear turquoise waters might have suggested the Caribbean, their bracing temperature swiftly removed that illusion. Near the top of my list was Rostro, a place of savage loveliness whose powerful currents made it a dangerous beauty. I’ll remember Langosteira, near Fisterra, for the sweet, fresh local razor clams, simply fried in olive oil, that I enjoyed at a beach chiringuito behind the sands. And I almost swerved off the road when I first clapped eyes on the four-mile sweep of Carnota bay, majestic in its sickle-shaped curve, its surrounding landscape of dunes and marshy foreshore perfectly intact.

North of Carnota, the trip turned suddenly wilder and woollier. On the weather-beaten cape of Touriñán I spent a morning with a percebeiro, or collector of percebes (goose barnacles), the expensive shellfish delicacy that is to Spain what oysters are to France. Armed with an iron pick and considerable courage, Santiago lowered himself on to the ragged rocks to chip off the barnacles one by one, always keeping an eye out for the fierce waves that threatened to sweep him away. The risk factor is as high as the price fetched in the market