Panoramic Cabo Fisterra is a 3.5km drive or walk south of Fisterra town. It's crowned by a lighthouse, the Faro de Fisterra. Camino de Santiago pilgrims ending their journeys here ritually burn smelly socks, T-shirts and the like on the rocks just past the lighthouse. Many people come for sunset but it's a magnificent spot at any time (unless shrouded in fog or rain). The former lighthouse-keepers' residence is now a comfortable modern hotel, with a good cafe-bar and restaurant.
On the way out from Fisterra you pass the 12th-century Igrexa de Santa MarÃa das Areas. Some 600m past the church, a track signed 'Conxunto de San Guillermo' heads up the hill to the right, Monte Facho. This provides a longer (by 2km to 3km), but even more scenic alternative walking route to the cape, on which you can visit the mysterious Ermida de San Guillerme – a ruined medieval chapel and rock shelter which some believe may have been the location of a legendary ara solis (altar of the sun) that made Cabo Fisterra a place of pilgrimage long before Christianity arrived. It's also said that childless couples used to come here as recently as the 18th century to try to conceive.
