The first stop is the most time-sensitive of the entire route and one of its most extraordinary locations.

Playa de las Catedrales sits on the northern Galician coast near Ribadeo — about an hour and a half east of A Coruña. The beach itself is not large. What makes it worth planning a day around is what the rock does here. Centuries of Atlantic wave action have carved the cliffs into arches, columns, and sea caves that rise from the sand at low tide like the skeleton of a cathedral with the roof open to the sky. You walk through them, under them, between them. The scale is not obvious from the cliff path above. It only becomes clear when you are standing on the sand looking up.

At high tide the formations disappear under water. The experience of walking through the arches exists only during the low tide window — typically a two to three hour slot either side of low tide. Check the tables the night before and build your departure time from A Coruña around them.

The cliff path above the beach is worth walking before you descend — it gives you the full geometry of the place from above and frames what you are about to walk into.

Practical note: between June and September access requires a free permit booked in advance through the Xunta de Galicia website. Numbers are capped per tide window. Book before you leave home if you are travelling in summer. Outside peak season no permit is needed but the tide timing still applies