Bathed by the estuary, the town of Mugardos has a profound taste of the sea. Its relief is low and undulating forming beautiful and picturesque landscapes. Its shape and assortment of rocks, mixed with its bed of sand and lime, make it an ideal place for fish farming.
All the territory of Mugardos is within a large coastal strip along which there are inlets —O Baño, A Barca, Santa Lucía, O Seixo—, tips —Redonda, Peteiro, Ratón, Leiras, Promontoiro and O Seixo— and the beach of A Bestarruza, at the end of the seafront. Which makes it impossible to talk about Mugardos without mentioning the sea.
One of the main tourist attractions of Mugardos is the beautiful town and harbour, with a view of the Ferrol estuary. We can start walking in a characteristic way, travelling around 10 minutes by boat from Ferrol, enjoying the scenery and the sea breeze. From the sea we can also get an unrecognizable and incomparable view of the spectacular entrance to the estuary, with the castles of A Palma and San Felipe face to face.
We then find the delightful seafront, very crowded on the weekends, and where there is always a lot of activity in connection with the sea (caulking, tenderising of octopus, cleaning of the fish…). From the Casa do Reloxo —Fishermen’s Guild and Tourism Office headquarters— we find the continuous balcony houses, typical of the Corunna coast, some of them with a gallery, accentuating the charm of Mugardos as a fishing village. This space is called Cantón da Mariña, just up to the anchor monument, in the roundabout leading to the urban centre.
From here we enter the Cantón de Cora, stretching to the A Bestarruza beach access. Between both places we find the O Loureiro fountain. According to legend, anyone drinking its water will marry a girl from Mugardos.
The promenade also offers us the chance of tasting, in any of the many inns, the famous octopus, prepared either in the Mugardos or in the Galician way, in a pie… in any of its variants it delights the numerous tourists passing by every weekends.
After eating, one should continue along the comfortable seafront in the harbour, until the cosy A Bestarruza beach, very sheltered and with calm waters, where we can still contemplate the remains of the ancient salting factory from the 18th century. A big part of the summer life takes part in this sand.
If we keep on walking, in the direction of the Castle of A Palma, we will find the O Baño inlet, through a nice promenade surrounded by trees and with an excellent view of the estuary, in a place called As Mareas. After we pass the O Baño country house and the stone bridge on the O Esteiro river, we can follow the road and take a path to the right, in the Camiño Vello, along the coast, up to A Redonda, with its picturesque lighthouse and a small inlet where, if the tide allows for it, we can see women fishing for shellfish. If we follow the road we will enjoy a magnificent image, with the Castle of A Palma and the Castle of San Felipe on the coast of Ferrol, and the narrow and spectacular entrance to the estuary.
Some meters away from the Castle of A Palma there is the big, round rock known as “Cú da Raíña” (Queen’s Bottom), a memory of Marianne of Neoburg disembarking there when she was travelling to Ferrol to join her future husband, the King Charles II.
The panoramic view is excellent if we stay on the road up to the Monte da Bailadora, some 265 meters above sea level, a place of particular natural interest. Then we get to the summit, where there are remains of ancient military batteries —from there the image of the estuary, of the castles of A Palma and San Felipe on the other shore and a close-up of Mugardos is incomparably beautiful, worthy of the best postcard.
The A Barca inlet is another of Mugardos’ spaces of natural interest. We can get there through routes in which the lush nature and the sea are omnipresent elements, giving us a thousand types of tones and brightness. The best clam of the estuary is taken from here. The view of the women shellfishing and reflected on the fertile waters they get the prized fruit from is unique, surrounded by one of the more picturesque fishing villages in this area: O Seixo; its harbour of decorated and colourful houses, with their bright-colours windows and balconies, some of them with a quay, together with sumptuous, modernist Latin American-style mansions, form a lovely, full of life place.