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On the Galician coast rise the highest cliffs in Continental Europe (VixÃa Garita da Herbeira, 613 meters). Where the most exquisite barnacles and shellfish in the world are eaten. A natural mecca to which one travels ancestrally. We are in Cedeira or Cedeyra, protagonist today in Las Fotos de los Lectores de La Vanguardia.
Its name was carved in the sea, etymologically it comes from Cetárea, a hatchery, perhaps even for cetaceans, as it is an old whale watching. Studied by Porto Dapena and mentioned for the first time in 1101 as “portione mea .., et alias in Cetaria” or in 1120, “sancta MarÃa del Mar… et est in territorio Cetaria”.
The archaeologist L. Monteagudo wrote that this territory was inhabited in antiquity by the Lapatiancos, Lapatianci or Labacenos, one of the three Celtic Artabrian tribes, with Brigantines and Nerios.
Protected by the Serra da Capelada, which descends to the sea. Prima since the VI of Gran Betraña and French Brittany. In contemporary times it was twinned with Paimpot.
Legend has it that God gave this place to the Apostle Andrew, jealous of Santiago’s success. That is why they make a pilgrimage to Régoa, “going dead, or who was not alive” to Santo Andrés de Teixido. Located in the middle of terraced meadows, sculpted by wind erosion. Once only accessible by carreiros, like an oracle or Olympus. Armored and hidden like the Ajanta of India, the hanging temples of China, or the Tibetan Potala Palace.
It may be that there was a town prior to Romanization, in the Iron Age, functioning as a mystical place. It survived as a priory in the Middle Ages linked to the order of Saint John of Jerusalem.
Father Sarmiento mentions it in 1703, and he walked there in 1755, a time when it must have enjoyed prestige since an altarpiece was erected in 1624, a presbytery in 1665 and the nave in 1785 when the church was finished.
Its unmistakable face of exposed stones and whitewash is recent. Cooked bread, known for its colorful symbols of luck: La Flor, La Mano, La Barca, S.Andrés, La Sardina, La Escalera, La Paloma and La Corona. Also famous is its herba de namorar, a sea carnation (Armeria maritima), which enmeigas lovers.
The town and the priory were under the protection of the House of Traba, later to their descendants the Andrade, from these to the Trastámara. The population and alfoces passed into the hands of the same family, a transfer document is known in 1423 from Fabrico Enriquez de Castilla to his sister Beatriz de Castro (wife of Pedro Alvarez Osorio I Count of Lemos), but before that she had been Lady of Cedeira their half-sister, Constanza Enriquez.
It’s a movie place. The celebrated actor, Leslie Howard, was “gone with the wind” off his coast in 1943 during World War II. He was shot down by German planes in a tragic plane crash while spying. A rumor attributed to W. Churchill traveling on that BOAC flight 777.
Not everything is tragedy, for 10 years the Real Madrid of Santiago Bernabeu found their fattening paradise here. Site of spiritual and corporal disconnection.
We can see it hiding in the sun behind the Cross of the Chapel of San Antón de Corveiro, standing at least since 1662. Walk along what they call the via ferrata, path of the saint, or along its shore illuminated by the Lighthouses of Punta Candieira, da Robaleira and Punta Sarridal.
It is relaxing to cool off in the waters of the RÃa de Cedeira, formed at the mouth of the Condomiñas. Its shore sculpts the beaches of Magdalena, Area Longa, Cala Sonreiras (to which we descend by almost endless wooden stairs), Burbullas/Cerdeiras, Mi Señora, and the strong west wild ones such as Cortés, Pescadoira and Teixidelo. To descend to the latter, hours of walking are required. But the only non-volcanic black sand in the world is discovered, made of peridotite that emerged from the center of the earth.
On the same cliff we can see from the signs of an old glacial valley or how a waterfall of more than 50 meters empties directly into the sea.
On the beach are the remains of a ferrous shipwreck, that of the cement merchant Bonnie Carrier stranded in 1986. Not far away the Argentine ship, renamed Don Segundo Sombra, ran aground on August 22, 1980.
Due to its nautical traffic, the estuary had to be protected. The Castillo de la Concepción was built in 1747, when three English corsair ships besieged 40 brigantines with cargoes for the Ferrol arsenal. Below the fort, at the foot of the sea, in O Sarridal, we can see 19th century cetareas, perhaps recovered as flags for the name of the town.
The “Villa del Percebe” is the birthplace of Bastón y Cortón, featured in The Galician and Asturian Illustration, merchant, banker, judge, vice-consul of Portugal, deputy to the Cortes, Mayor-Corregidor of San Juan de Puerto Rico.
A relative was the philanthropist López Cortón, emigrated to the Caribbean island, promoter of the first Floral Games of A Coruña and the Album of Charity.
The Argentine activist Dionisia López de Madres de la Plaza de Mayo was born in Cederira, her countryman Carlos RodrÃguez Brandeiro lives there in Buenos Aires making his homeland. Opposite the RÃo de la Plata played music, Bernardo Freire, Director of the Municipal Band of Montevideo. Custody of the past Rafael Usero. It comes from the sagas of Cribeiro musicians, of the writers Labraña, of the Vergara, of the jurist RodrÃguez Bereijo, or of the politicians and journalist, Rubido Ramonde.
The rocky sea walls of its coastline amaze and impact in such a way that they make one tiny before the immensity. Millions of years emerge.
Magic becomes science, its cliffs contain impressive geological riches. Its funds are aquatic jungle. Sensational site.
Life began here and death accompanies it. Pilgrimage for several civilizations, “at the end of the world” with an infinite gaze. Sea path to march on, dead or alive.
