Mar de Santiago will again be the starting point for the Quetzal Route. The exhibition, which will begin in this region, will bring more than 200 youths from all over Spain to the geo-destination. They are expected to arrive by July 1, which will mark the beginning of this special trip featuring the country’s best students and that will continue until July 14.
Under the name 2023 Expedition. Towards the Light at the End of the Earth, this initiative is sponsored by the Xunta de Galicia in collaboration with the Mar de Santiago geo-destination. The project involves a trip of study and adventure whose participants will be able to discover important sites in the history of ancient Gallaecia, reliving its past and travelling along the route of lighthouses lighting up Spain’s most featured coastline, the Costa da Morte.
Mar de Santiago will be the base camp for this adventure. In Vilanova de Arousa, the more than 200 participants will discover this fishing town and learn about the writer Ramón María del Valle-Inclán.
The 2023 Expedition will also feature cuisine. In fact, they will learn about the work carried out in one of the main mussel-producing areas included under the “Mexillón de Galicia” (Galician Mussels) Designation of Origin, visiting its mussel platforms.
Starting at the Mar de Santiago ferry station, they will undertake the Traslatio trip, sailing along the world’s only sea-river way of the cross. During the trip, they will visit the Torres de Oeste fort, in Catoira, a strategic site during the time of the Norma invasions.
As they continue sailing, the youths will discover the beautiful scenery surrounding the River Ulla’s meanders in Valga. There they will enjoy a brief stopover facing the Vilarello river beach, an important landmarks for visitors and pilgrims.
The exhibition’s Traslatio trip will end at the Pontecesures river port. There they will enjoy this municipal district’s cuisine, with lamprey as the main dish, and discover the Roman bridge linking the provinces of Pontevedra and A Coruña.
After completing its tour of Mar de Santiago, the Quetzal Route will continue its adventure in Portugal, where it will visit the locality of Ponte de Lima. From there its participants will descend in kayaks as far as the mouth of the River Lima at Viana do Castelo, a town that they will also visit.
They will then return to Galicia to visit Compostela. Starting there, the exhibition will pay tribute to the 30th anniversary of the declaration of the Way of St. James as World Heritage by UNESCO in 1993. To that end, the group will travel to Fisterra to tour the Costa da Morte, ending in A Coruña. There the more than 200 youths will participate in a singular itinerary to remember the 50th anniversary of Pablo Picasso’s death.