Village
Cee is a town of around 7,700 inhabitants set at the head of the Corcubión ria, a service hub for the A Coruña stretch of the Costa da Morte, sheltered from the winds by the hills of Sete Grises and Alto das Penas. It lived from whale hunting in the cove of Caneliñas, whose factory, the last of its kind in Spain, closed in 1986; some even trace the village's name to the Latin cetus, whale, though Greek and Gaelic origins are also considered. Its late Gothic church had to be rebuilt after the passage of Napoleon's troops. From here starts the C-550 road, which runs along the entire western Galician coast to La Guardia and Tuy, while the small beach of Estorde offers a sheltered spot under the Finisterre arc.
Monument
A church of Gothic origin raised between the 14th and 16th centuries, burnt by Napoleonic troops in 1809 and rebuilt afterwards; it keeps its Gothic doorway and in 2023 was granted the status of sanctuary by the archbishopric of Santiago.
Monument
18th-century fortress located in the parish of A Ameixenda (Cee, A Coruña), which, together with the castelo do Cardeal on the opposite shore, closed off the entrance to the Corcubión estuary. Work began in 1740 under the engineer Francisco Llobet, replaced in 1744 by the Frenchman Carlos Lemaur, and was completed in 1755; it took its name in honour of the future Charles IV. It mounted twelve pieces of artillery facing the sea and housed quarters for a garrison of 88 soldiers. It lost its military function and was put up for public auction at the end of the 19th century; after passing through several private owners, it was declared Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection) in 1994 and today, converted into a private home, remains closed to the public.
Curiosity
A whaling station set up in 1924 with Norwegian capital in a sheltered cove in the parish of A Ameixenda; it processed some 12,000 cetaceans before closing in 1985 and was the last great whaling factory in Europe to stop working.
Nature
A beach in the parish of A Ameixenda open towards the mouth of the ría of Corcubión and separated from the town by a stretch of rocky coast; it is one of the wildest and least altered beaches on this side of the Costa da Morte.
Nature
A fine-sand cove located between Cee and Corcubión, on the northern shore of the ria; its small size and shelter from the north-west winds make it one of the calmest beaches in the inner stretch of the Corcubión estuary. It belongs to the parish of Toba, within the municipality of Cee, and is part of the Costa da Morte; it is a sheltered sandy beach more than 500 metres long, located inside the seo of Corcubión.
Nature
The mouth of the río Castro, also called río Lires or rego da Carbaliza in its final stretch, which marks the natural border between the concellos of Cee and Muxía, between the parishes of Lires and Nemiña; its basin also gathers the rest of the streams that drain between cabo Touriñán and cabo Fisterra. It is considered the smallest ria in Galicia and forms an almost untouched complex of dunes, marshland and a sandy beach split in two by the river.
Activity
The philanthropist Fernando Blanco de Lema was born in Cee in 1796 and emigrated to Cuba at the age of thirteen after the death of his godfather in the War of Independence; he started out as a shop assistant in a grocery store and at thirty-three went into the hardware business, the basis of the fortune he also built up with shares in banks and iron companies. In his will of 1875 he set aside the greater part of his estate, 750,000 gold pesos, to build and maintain a primary and secondary school in his home town. The museum, opened in 2001 in the former Girls' School raised on the site of his birthplace, displays the scientific instruments of that institute.
Monument
The Museo Fernando Blanco occupies the building of the school that the philanthropist Fernando Blanco de Lema (Cee, 1796 - Cuba, 1875) ordered built in his will to educate the children of his home town. Having emigrated to Cuba at the age of thirteen after the death of his godfather in the War of Independence, he made his fortune first as a clerk in a grocery store and later with hardware, banking and iron-trading businesses. Before dying he set aside 750,000 gold pesos to build and maintain the school, whose chapel holds his ashes; in 1973 a monument to his memory was unveiled at the entrance of the institute that bears his name. The museum preserves the physics cabinet, the library and the 19th-century classrooms.
Historical milestone
The Napoleonic troops devastated the town in 1809, during the Peninsular War, and destroyed the parish church, which had to be rebuilt using what little was left standing of the 16th-century building.
Nature
An urban stretch of sand with calm waters at the head of the ría de Corcubión, protected from the open sea by the very shape of the estuary; its promenade links the villa with neighbouring Corcubión.
Historical milestone
In the early 17th century, as in other ports of the Costa da Morte, whaling was the main livelihood of Cee; from that wealth came the late-Gothic parish church, centuries before Caneliñas industrialized whale hunting.
Monument
A canastro of the Fisterra type raised beside the parish church of San Adrián de Toba: it measures fifteen metres long and stands on thirteen pairs of legs; the residents also know it as the canastro of Caamaño.
Curiosity
Water mills driven by the rego das Laxes, which rises at the foot of Pedra Monteira and crosses the parish of San Adrián de Toba before giving itself up to the river of Cee; they are spread along the channel in the same rural setting as the great canastro.