I visited the end of the world this week, at least the spot on the earth where the ancient Romans believed the sun left the earth and the known world ended.  The AC 552 highway takes you there in four lanes with possible detours through charming fishing villages along the coast of Galicia. If you stand on the granite cliffs of Finisterre, Spain looking west, you see the billowing Atlantic and can understand the Roman’s perspective for nothing lays beyond, at least nothing one could see or travel to in the ships of their day.

The Romans called the spot the Cape of Death since the sun died there. It was also a place of numerous ship wrecks on the jagged rocks reaching out in a finger hook into the sea before a light house was built centuries later. The Greeks had denominated another spot on the earth, Mount Hacho in Spanish Morocco, as the place where the world ended because that was as far as their eyes could see.

Located on Costa da Morte, the Coast of Death, Finisterre is the ultimate destination for thousands of pilgrims each year who make the journey first to Santiago de Compostela, and then the hardiest continue and walk the additional 90 km. Tradition calls for the pilgrims to burn their clothes and/or boots as a symbol of starting anew. The wisdom is that the most difficult part of the journey is yet ahead of them, the return journey home to a new life.

Since the ninth century when a hermit allegedly found the grave of the Apostle James who had preached in Spain, been beheaded in Jerusalem and then returned by his disciples to Spain, Santiago de Compostela has been the destination of millions of pilgrims worldwide. These days some of the pilgrims appear to be both on a spiritual quest and an athletic adventure, with many combining the two. The caminos (roads) of the pilgrimage vary from 70 km to 1300 km and are traveled mostly on foot, though some pilgrims travel by car.

A journey of the mind can begin by a journey of the feet as thought opens and contemplates vistas not obvious to the eye and beyond perceived earthbound realities.

Finisterre in fact was not the end of the world. Centuries later, leaving from Spain’s southern ports, three and four-masted ships chased the sun as it moved towards the horizon.  Christopher Columbus stood at the prow, sailing with his own misconceptions about what lay beyond, but with a knowledge of trade winds  that allowed him to arrive and return four times to the New World out there.

It is easier to look back than to glimpse what lies ahead, but on the wind carved summit of Finisterre high above the Atlantic coast, the visitor can almost see the curve of the earth and imagine new worlds without and within.