You are now at Punta do Cabo, the end of the earth. Take advantage of your visit to this magical place.
Some authors identify Cape Finisterre with the old Nerio Promontory. For others, it is Ara Solis, a sun worship ritual site. The sea swallows the sun at the end of the earth. The Chaldeans and the Phoenicians, the peoples credited with the construction of Ara Solis, already knew that. When they came to Finisterre and discovered how beautifully the sun set there, they erected this altar to worship it. It was destroyed later on by order of the Apostle James for being a pagan site. Some historians believe that such destruction did not take place at all, and that what happened was rather a Christianization of a pagan rite, that converted Ara Solis into the hermitage of San Guillerme. The remains are still preserved at Mount Facho behind the lighthouse.
Such was the fame of this altar that people from all over the world came here to kneel before it. The legend lives on, and Finisterre is the end of Santiago’s Way. Today, the sun worship means marveling at this beautiful sunset. The Ara Solis so many people looked for could actually be a table-shaped rock at the Cape’s end. Who knows?
