Santa Mariña

Santa Mariña, also known as Santa Mariña das Maroñas, is a small parish of the municipality of Mazaricos, in the A Coruña district of Xallas, which the Camino de Fisterra crosses some twenty kilometres from Negreira. Its role on the pilgrim route is that of a natural rest halfway through the long day linking Negreira with Olveiroa: here walkers split in two a stage that, done whole, runs to more than thirty-three kilometres. The settlement scatters into hamlets such as Maroñas, Castro, Liñares or Gueima, on a windswept plateau of meadows, pine and eucalyptus, with the wind turbines of Monte Aro turning on the heights. The parish church of Santa Mariña, a plain country building, presides over the place and gives it its name. The surroundings look towards the valley of the river Xallas and the Fervenza reservoir, already glimpsed on the descent to Olveiroa. For the walker, Santa Mariña means a bed and a meal on a stretch where services are scarce: a handful of lodgings and eating houses used to pilgrims, among them the long-standing Casa Pepa, keep the hospitality of the Camino alive. The stop, modest and quiet, sums up the character of the Camino a Fisterra: inland, rural and solitary, before the Atlantic comes into view.