Village
Muxía is a concello in the province of A Coruña, in the region of Finisterre, within the Costa da Morte, divided into fifteen parishes. Its sanctuary of the Virxe da Barca, founded in the Middle Ages by the monks of Moraime and rebuilt in Baroque style in 1719 around a 14th-century Gothic carving, draws pilgrims along with the stones of Abalar and Os Cadrís; a fire destroyed its main altarpiece in 2013. The municipality also preserves several Romanesque churches, such as that of San Julián de Moraime, from the 12th century. With around 4,300 inhabitants, its coastline was among those hit hardest by the sinking of the oil tanker Prestige in 2002, recalled today by the sculpture A Ferida, by Alberto Bañuelos.
Monument
Baroque sanctuary begun in 1717 on a pilgrimage site documented since the 11th and 12th centuries, founded in the Middle Ages on the initiative of the monks of Moraime. It houses a Gothic carving of the Virgin, from the 14th century, and nearby stand the stones of Abalar and of Os Cadrís. A fire destroyed it at Christmas 2013 and consumed the main altarpiece, a Baroque work by the Santiago-born sculptor Miguel de Romay; it reopened after its restoration in 2015.
Monument
Church of the former Benedictine monastery of Moraime, built in the 12th century and considered one of the jewels of Romanesque architecture on the Costa da Morte; its western portal has been linked to the workshops of the cathedral of Santiago. The monastery, of uncertain origin among early hermits, received its first documented donations at the end of the 11th century from the counts of Traba, and was attacked by Norman raiders around 1105 and by Almoravids around 1115, which led to the building of the present church with the help of King Alfonso VII, grateful for the shelter he had received there as a child. With a basilical plan of three naves and three apses, it preserves eight paintings discovered in 1970 beneath a layer of whitewash. From 1489 it was dependent on the Royal Monastery of San Benito in Valladolid.
Monument
A communal granite hórreo raised beside the Romanesque church of San Martiño, with 22 pairs of supports and close to 27 metres in length; it stored the monastery's tithes and ranks among the longest surviving in Galicia.
Monument
Standing on a knoll facing the Atlantic Ocean, next to the sanctuary of the Virxe da Barca, in the concello of Muxía, this granite sculpture from O Porriño, more than eleven metres high and weighing about 400 tonnes divided between two structures, is the largest sculpture in Galicia and in Spain. The work of the Burgos-born artist Alberto Bañuelos-Fournier, it was donated by the insurance company Aegon to the concello of Muxía as a tribute to the volunteers who came to help after the Prestige disaster, which occurred on 13 November 2002, and was unveiled on 12 September 2003.
Nature
Cabo Touriñán is a granite peninsula that juts almost a kilometre into the Atlantic, in the municipality of Muxía, within the Costa da Morte; its isthmus is barely 150 metres wide and it is the westernmost point of Galicia and of peninsular Spain, about 2.1 kilometres west of cabo Fisterra. At its tip two lighthouses stand together: the first, a small tower with a lantern on a square keeper's house, was lit in December 1898; in 1981 it was replaced by a cylindrical concrete tower 14 metres high with a double gallery, whose white light reaches 24 miles.
Nature
A beach of some 1,460 metres stretched between the Punta Cociñadoiro and the mouth of the River Castro, in the parish of Nemiña; its constant swell has made it a regular destination for surfers and bodyboarders from all over Europe.
Nature
A semicircular beach of fine sand and sedimentary origin facing the town of Muxía, backed by a large dune still almost entirely covered with vegetation; the Camino de Santiago to Muxía skirts it before reaching the village.
Curiosity
A granite slab beside the sanctuary of A Barca that tradition identifies with the sail of the Virgin's stone boat; it was said to rock only under the weight of someone free of sin, and a storm in 1978 shifted it and put a stop to its swaying.
Curiosity
A pierced rock in the sacred complex of A Barca under which pilgrims crawl on all fours seeking relief for kidney and back trouble; together with the Pedra de Abalar it completes the ritual of the best-attended pilgrimage festival on the Costa da Morte.
Curiosity
A cycle of murals uncovered in 1970 beneath the whitewash of the north wall of San Xiao de Moraime: eight panels of the first quarter of the 16th century representing the seven deadly sins and death, in brocade robes of Flemish fashion.
Monument
The mosteiro of San Xiao de Moraime, a 12th-century medieval church located in the parish of Moraime, three kilometres from Muxía, was the seat of a Benedictine priory dependent on San Martiño Pinario and originally protected by the Froilaz-Traba family, later becoming linked to local lineages. It preserves a doorway with historiated archivolts and mural paintings, and hosts the romería of San Roque every August.
Historical milestone
The single-hulled tanker Prestige, carrying 77,000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil, sent out its distress call on 13 November 2002 off this coast, in the midst of a storm; after several days of manoeuvres to move it away from the Galician coast, it broke apart on the 19th and eventually sank about 250 kilometres from the Costa de la Muerte, spilling tens of thousands of tonnes of fuel oil. The spill affected 2,000 kilometres of Spanish, French and Portuguese coastline and is considered one of the greatest environmental disasters in the history of shipping, with a clean-up cost then estimated at 12,000 million dollars; it also had a particular political impact in Galicia. Muxía was one of the concellos hardest hit by the oil slick.
Historical milestone
A lightning strike set fire to the sanctuary at the height of Christmas 2013 and destroyed the roof, the altarpiece and much of the interior; the church was rebuilt and reopened for worship shortly afterwards.
Activity
The sanctuary of the Virxe da Barca stands at the tip of the peninsula on which Muxía sits, facing the sea, and is one of Galicia's most singular temples for its religious rites and its architecture. On the first Sunday after 8 September the romería of Nosa Señora da Barca is held, declared a Fiesta de Interés Turístico Nacional (festival of national tourist interest) and the most crowded on the Costa da Morte, which blends religious acts with pagan rites linked to the legend of the Virgin's arrival in a stone boat to comfort the apostle Santiago: devotees pass beneath the Pedra dos Cadrís and make the Pedra de Abalar rock. The sanctuary was destroyed by a lightning-caused fire on Christmas Day 2013 and its restoration was completed in 2015.
Food and drink
In the drying yards of the port conger eel is still split open and hung in the wind; for centuries it was sent to the lands of Castile and of the Maragatería to make stews with chickpeas.
Monument
A Romanesque church of the parish of Nemiña, at the southern end of the concello and in sight of the sandy beach of the same name; with Moraime and Santa María it forms the trio of medieval churches the municipality preserves.
Nature
The río Castro carves in the rock a succession of pools and small falls that the residents call caldeiras; they lie inland, far from the capes and sanctuaries that give the concello its fame, on a stretch of riverside woodland.
Monument
A group of stone crosses spread across the parish of San Martiño de Ozón, the same one that holds the old monastery of Santa María and the great communal hórreo; they mark crossroads and church yards on the road towards Muxía.