Dumbría

Dumbría is the capital of a large inland municipality of the Costa da Morte in A Coruña, a land of stone hamlets, hórreos and low hills that the Camino to Finisterre and Muxía crosses on its way to the Atlantic. Its great natural landmark is the Xallas river, the only one in Europe that plunges into the sea as a waterfall: the spectacular Fervenza do Ézaro, at its mouth, crowns a succession of cascades —Ponte Olveira, Castrelo, Santa Uxía— that shape the municipality's landscape. These lands preserve a deep ancestral imprint, from the dolmen known as Pedra da Arca to the old legends that place ancient battles between Celtic chieftains on the banks of the Xallas. For the pilgrim, Dumbría is above all a providential rest: it stands halfway along the long and demanding stage linking Olveiroa with Muxía, just after the Hospital crossroads, where the route forks towards Finisterre or towards Muxía. Nearby runs the Vákner Territory, the trail that evokes the legendary beast described by the German pilgrim Künig von Vach in the 15th century. With its hostel and guesthouses, the village makes it possible to split one of the toughest stages of the Jacobean epilogue into two days, gaining time to savour the final arrival at the sea without haste.