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We move on to a plate of navallas, razor clams charred with wood smoke, tender
pulbo á feira – chunks of octopus smattered with pimenton – and a plate of
warm piquillo peppers stuffed with bacalau, pounded salt cod.

In the morning, we set off from the little Hotel Elisardo and head uphill on a
street where every garden has green, unripe lemon trees, hens scratching,
cabbages, potato plants, fig trees, and its own granite hórreo – grain store
for storing sweet corn – perched on pillared mushroom stones to keep the
rats out. We enter the woods and begin our ascent through pine, oak and the
ubiquitous eucalyptus trees grown for paper. We see no one walking the hills
and, since this Camino is a forgotten coastal route marked on old maps of
Galicia as one of the ancient paths to Santiago de Compostela, the few
inhabitants we pass greet us with curiosity, each sprawl of houses quiet but
for their alarmingly vocal dogs or the scrape of a hoe. There isn’t a hamlet
without a cruceiro at its heart. Built from the 14th to the 20th centuries,
these crosses are as much a symbol of Galicia as the hórreos.

^{Razor clams (Picture: Getty Images/Flickr Open)}

To the left of us are ragged bays, mussel rafts, islets and crescent ribbons
of ochre sand. Passing a row of hórreos, we walk a carefully laid stony path
bordered by tall, slim tomb-shaped stones separating giant cabbages from the
Camino.

We arrive in Muros, a working port, via a sweep of causeway where, its being
low tide, two small figures are digging the sand for razor clams. All along
the promenade are white houses whose first floors have closed glass
balconies, known as galerías, from which the occupants can look out in sun
or rain. Casa Petra is mid a row of unpretentious restaurants opposite the
port.

If you are unacquainted with the Costa de la Muerte – the Coast of Death’s –
most sought-after, perilously acquired inhabitant, I can only say that our
excitement at being offered the holy grail of shellfish clearly surpassed
our waiter’s expectations. Percebes – goose barnacles – live attached to
rocks on the exposed Galician coast, where percebeiros risk their lives to
gather them. They can make up to €300 (£230) per kilo at auction on the
eve of a festival. We ordered a plateful for €16 (£12.50). Purists say that
they should taste of the Atlantic surf and the plankton on which these
creatures feed.

The trick is to cook percebes briefly in roiling water. When you have snapped
the claw from its stalk and wheedled out the stem of orange-purple flesh,
you will, if you are thrilled by such things, understand that no comparison
reflects the experience. To say that percebes taste a little like a
combination of crab, oyster, urchin, shrimp, is more confusing than
accurate.

Next, a platter of lightly steamed clams, razor clams, mussels and gambas in a
white wine and pimento broth as steeply piled as the hills we have scaled,
so we feel justified in opening, peeling, sucking and spooning until the
land is levelled.

From our room at the top of the Hostal Ria de Muros we hear the seagulls
squealing in the early hours. In the morning, the port is misted over like a
windscreen with soft rain. We head to the café next door for breakfast, but
the surly woman behind the counter offers only bad coffee and a packet of
stale cake. Miranda exhales a polite tirade of requests and explains we have
a five-hour walk ahead of us, but clearly nothing is more resistible than a
pair of backpackers never to return.

For three hours we head from the rain-blurred coast into the woods, dripping
and determined, up gorse- covered dirt tracks, our waterlogged boots
weighing on us like anchors.

Virtue has its own rewards, and when we finally get to the coast, the rain
stops. Passing the Punta Insúa lighthouse, we sit on the garden wall of a
closed up house to eat our picnic and are surprised by a weasel tame enough
to sit and survey us, white throated and caramel furred, from touching
distance. Known as guarduna in Spain, the weasel is seen as the guardian of
the house.

We clamber across rocks, push through spiky dune grasses and switchback on to
the dramatic emptiness of a two-mile strand, silver where the low tide is
creeping in and pale gold behind. Only our shadows cloud the sand, while
ahead of us, the mountains are patched with the dark reflections of the
clouds above.

Our itinerary declares today’s walk should take five hours; we have walked for
seven. And we are route marchers, not Sunday strollers. We have wildly
overshot the turn-off for Carnota.

Arriving at the Prouso Pension, the owner, Pedro, leads us to the kitchen,
extracts trays of chipirones – baby squid – and wings of fresh skate for us
to choose from, which his wife cooks with simple precision in the Galician
style, finished with olive oil, pimenton and boiled potatoes.

One of the points of walking this unpeopled Camino has been the opportunity
for Miranda and I to travel and talk or remain silent with the unjustifying
ease that one has with family. Once you have been walking for several hours,
keeping a rhythmical stride, a curious calm descends, you become almost
unaware of everything outside the moment and the landscape.

We hear the market setting up first thing in the morning. We buy black
tomatoes, early cherries and the rest of our picnic from an outstanding
stall of organic produce: golden empanadas filled with pork, salt cod or
tuna; cracked-topped loaves polka dotted with black raisins and walnuts;
young, waxy-skinned cow’s cheeses; and eucalyptus and pine honey. The stall
holder gives us a bottle of homemade wine to accompany our feast and we set
off.

The sky is murky grey blotting paper, the track brightened by butterflies,
cornflower blue or yellow with peacock-blue bodies. We see cup and ring
markings etched into the rocks dating from the Megalithic period and an
outcrop of rock thought to be the site of a pagan altar. Monte Pindo rises
ahead and we see our distant goal, Finisterre, the end of the earth.

A rigorous climb of 1,550m ends high up in a whirring wind farm from where we
walk through green pastureland punctuated by small villages. Our only
encounters are with some fearsome unguarded guard dogs. We cross a vast,
flat-calm lake, the dizzyingly set dam across it hundreds of feet above
where its waters fling themselves into a canyon below. Still nobody.

The Casa Santa Usia on the lake is a beautifully restored stone farmhouse
where we peel off sodden boots and lie by the peaceful water after our
six-hour trek. Dinner ends with torrija, traditionally eaten in Lent and
originating in the 15th century to use up stale bread – the Spanish version
of French toast. The bread is soaked in milk warmed with cinnamon and lemon
peel, wrung out, and fried in brûléed sugar to crisp. Manna to the
hungry marcher.

The next day we walk to the charming sea town of Corcubión with its palm-treed
promenade, 12th-century Romanesque church and back alleys whose stone houses
are fronted by exquisite wrought-iron balconies and elaborately carved great
doors. We lunch at the Cafeteria San Martin Restaurante, noisily besieged by
a full house of local diners cracking shells as the waiters speed round the
tables bearing trays of mussels, cockles, scallops, razor clams and fried
fish.

The following day we head for the lighthouse. We have joined the established
Camino, and it is something of a jolt to share our solitary path with
bunches of pilgrims. The approach to the end of the earth is tawdry with
souvenir stalls, but nothing detracts from our sense of awe as the great
blue merges with the sky beyond the lighthouse’s watchful presence.

We spend our final night in Santiago de Compostela. Since the early Middle
Ages pilgrims have come to the Romanesque cathedral, the reputed burial site
of St James. The Rajoy Palace faces the cathedral, making this square a
place of breathtaking architectural beauty. We walk the old city, its back
streets opening into squares and verdant gardens, and in the evening we
accompany Adrian Comesana, owner of the jewel of a hotel Pazo De Altamira
that we are staying in, to his favourite tapas bar, Gato Negro. The
empanadas sardinas and berberechos – cockles, the emblematic shells of the
pilgrim – are as salty sweet as you could wish for.

^{Santiago de Compostela}

Adrian is insistent that Miranda and I experience the best traditional dishes,
so we move on to Ocurro Da Parra for gambas coated in crisp batter served
with romesco and croquetas made with slow-simmered béchamel.

When we leave the following morning, we determine to return. This is not a
city to flit in and out of – it is beautiful and enticing at a majesterial
level, while retaining its charming parochial, local identity. And it is the
perfect place in which to indulge after the pilgrims’ path has been
accomplished.

Essentials

Tamasin Day-Lewis travelled with Walk the Camino (0141 956 1569; walkthecamino.com),
which specialises in trips along the Camino de Santiago.

A similar itinerary to Tamasin’s, but with seven nights in Spain, would cost
from £845 per person b  b based on two people sharing a twin
or double room. It includes five days of walking, seven nights’
accommodation, transfers, daily bag transfer and self-guiding information
pack, but not flights. EasyJet (easyjet.com)
flies to Santiago de Compostela from Gatwick on Tuesdays, Thursdays and
Saturdays; Ryanair (ryanair.com)
flies there from Stansted on Mondays, Wednesdays Fridays and Sundays.

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