Dan Perez Pictures | The Awe-inspiring Santuario da Virxe da Barca, Muxía: Heaven in Galicia

Welcome again to my persevering with collection of images from our summer time journey to Galicia, Spain final August. This put up is a particular one as a result of this place, the Santuario da Virxe da Barca, was not simply one other spot to catch a sundown off the Costa da Morte (Coast of Death), it was a magical (non secular?) place that discovered its method deep into our hearts. It was additionally the place we actually began to appreciate that this journey was not going to be like another journey we’d ever taken.
 

 
In my final put up, we arrived in Muxía the place we caught a spectacular sundown at Faro Touriñán and on the next day, drove about an hour north to the Cementerio de los Ingleses, additionally off the breathtaking Costa da Morte. So the subsequent cease on my very intricately deliberate itinerary was the the Santuario da Virxe da Barca (Sanctuary of Our Lady of the Boat).
 

 
The Sanctuary of Virxe da Barca stands on the very finish of the Camino Finisterre and Muxía (a ~120km, 4–5 day pilgrimage beginning in Santiago de Compostela, main west to the “end of the world” at Cape Finisterre after which on to the coastal city of Muxía overlooking the Atlantic Ocean). It is among the oldest (and hottest) pilgrimage websites in Galicia. Pilgrims who stroll from Santiago de Compostela straight to Muxía (approx. 86-90 km), can ask for the ‘Muxiana’, a certificates from the Casa da Cultura, to commemorate their journey.
 

 
The first documented church on this website was a Romanesque chapel constructed within the eleventh or twelfth century. The present Baroque-style construction (hold scrolling, you’re nearly there!), inbuilt 1719 and funded by the Dukes of Maceda, includes a easy transept, a notable excessive altarpiece by sculptor Miguel de Romay from 1717, and a 14th-century Gothic picture of the Virgin (with a reproduction used post-restoration). Adjacent components embrace a Nineteenth-century rectory home from 1828, an unbiased bell tower erected in 1834, and towers added within the mid-Twentieth century. On Christmas Day 2013, lightning struck the church throughout a storm, inflicting a devastating fireplace. It was totally restored in 2015.

[Scroll down to a gallery featuring interior photographs of the chapel]

 
Long earlier than Christianity, Roman pilgrims made pilgrimages (in what would ultimately change into Galicia) alongside the Via Finisterre (“The Way to Land’s End”) in honor of the god Janus. Celtic peoples, who worshiped the solar deity Lugh, travelled comparable paths additionally in quest of Land’s End and the solar’s resting place. Over the centuries, many locals held on to their pagan beliefs, making conversion to Christianity a gradual course of – particularly for the hard-working Apostle James, who was turning into discouraged in his mission to evangelize Galicia…

Santuario da Virxe da Barca

But in accordance with legend, the Virgin Mary appeared to the Apostle James, arriving at this very coast in a stone boat led by angels to encourage and renew his energy (and if a go to from the Virgin Mary herself doesn’t renew your energy, what’s going to?). The scattered boulders surrounding the church (often called the “stony sanctuary”) are believed to be remnants of this miraculous vessel, every imbued with attributed powers(*)
 

 
This legend turned Muxía right into a Marian shrine and pilgrimage website. Every September, the village celebrates its greatest pageant, the ‘Romaría da Virxe da Barca’, a significant conventional, non secular, and standard pilgrimage attracting 1000’s to the Nosa Señora da Barca Sanctuary. A Barca Pilgrimage, declared a National Tourist Interest occasion, is widely known on the second Sunday of September, besides when this second Sunday falls on the eighth. Then it passes on to the next Sunday, which falls on the fifteenth.

A Ferida” (“The Wound”)

 
In the autumn of 2002, the Prestige (a 26-year-old, Greek-operated, structurally poor oil tanker) sank off the Galician coast spilling an estimated 66,000 liters of oil into the ocean, polluting 1000’s of kilometers of shoreline stretching from Portugal to Spain and France. It would change into the worst ecological catastrophe within the historical past of Spain – and Muxía was floor zero.
 

 
This tragedy, nonetheless, caused a tide of solidarity with the Galician folks as over 100,000 volunteers got here from throughout Spain to assist with the clean-up. Every day for 9 months, folks painstakingly scraped oil into buckets, a lot of them carrying no protecting gear. “When there was a sunny day, (the oil) became more volatile and you would see the volunteers getting dizzy and fainting. It was shocking”, stated Javier Sar, a sailor for 20 years within the Spanish area of Galicia, in an interview with euronews.com.
 

 
A big stone obelisk, “A Ferida” (“The Wound”) made by sculptor Alberto Bañuelos Fournier, was erected to commemorate the 100,000 volunteers who got here from throughout Spain to assist with the clean-up. The granite sculpture stands greater than 36 toes in peak and weighs 400 tons. The granite got here from O Porriño (an industrial city identified for its pink granite manufacturing), and it’s the largest sculpture in Galicia and Spain. It was inaugurated on September 12, 2003.
 

 
So what was it wish to behold this historic sanctuary? It felt like being in an entire different actuality, a spot not of this world. Heavenly? Maybe. What I can say is that sitting on the rocks off the Costa da Morte and watching the solar forged a heat glow over the rugged shoreline because it slowly descended behind the Atlantic Ocean was a form of non secular expertise. Looking again on it as I write this put up (and evaluation the pictures), all of it looks like it was only a dream.
 

Epilogue

I did pop into the chapel to snap a number of images (scroll right down to see the gallery) and as I normally do when inside a church, I took off the baseball cap I used to be carrying and laid it down on one of many pews (it’s a small chapel). After heading again exterior, I spotted after a couple of minutes that I had left the hat inside so I went again in to search for it however couldn’t discover it wherever. I used to be slightly bummed about it (I actually appreciated that hat!) however after the solar had set, the church already closed and locked, and we have been on the point of stroll again right down to our automotive, I noticed the hat laying on high of one of many massive rocks proper in entrance of the church.
 

 
Now, I’m not attempting to get all bizarre about it – heck, possibly somebody from the church simply noticed it mendacity on a pew inside and easily introduced it exterior and positioned it there earlier than locking the church door. Sure, that’s most likely precisely what occurred. It simply felt to me (but once more) that there was extra to it than simply that. The spirits of my Galician ancestors? The ghost of Saint James? The Virgin Mary herself, maybe? Yeah, like several one in every of them had nothing higher to do than returning a silly baseball cap again to Galicia’s prodigal son. I simply know that being on this place and feeling so near “God” made me really feel like these potentialities weren’t as preposterous as one may in any other case think about.
 

 
And that’s the sort of place the Santuario da Virxe da Barca is, at the least to me (and Serena, too!) – an ethereal place that doesn’t appear to be of this world, of this time. A sanctuary in each sense of the phrase. What a sundown in heaven should appear to be. It’s one of many completely must-see locations in Galicia, particularly when the solar is setting. You can thank me afterwards…
 
Here’s a gallery with a number of extra photos, primarily the inside of the church. Enjoy!

Much extra from Galicia forthcoming – SUBSCRIBE HERE to not miss it (and you actually don’t need to miss what’s coming!)

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Photographs are nice however the great thing about Galicia can’t be correctly illustrated with out the transferring picture, so head on over to my video manufacturing website to watch a wonderful recap video from our journey that’s assured to take your breath away.Photographs taken with (largely) the Xiaomi 13 Ultra digicam cellphone and the iPhone 16 ProFor extra details about visiting Galicia, go to the official tourism website

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