Things to Do in Galicia: 14 Best Places to Visit in Spain's Green Corner

The 14 best things to do in Galicia

Galicia rewards travelers who think in layers rather than a single checklist: the Camino’s final stretch, an Atlantic coastline cut into deep rías, a wild northern cape, river canyons inland, and cities that each hold a distinct piece of Galician identity. Here’s how the region’s best places to visit fit together.

1. Walk the final stretch of the Camino de Santiago into the cathedral

Whatever route you take — French, Portuguese, or the coastal Camino — the pilgrimage route converges on Santiago de Compostela’s Obradoiro square, where hundreds of thousands of pilgrims arrive each year to see the cathedral’s baroque façade for the first time. Even without walking the whole Camino, covering its last stretch on foot gives a real sense of what draws so many people to this corner of Spain.

2. Get lost in Santiago’s old town

Beyond the cathedral, Santiago’s cobbled streets hold covered markets, granite arcades, and university buildings that keep the city lived-in rather than frozen for tourists. It’s compact enough to cover on foot in a day, though most travelers linger longer.

3. Take the ferry out to the Cíes Islands

Part of the Atlantic Islands of Galicia National Park, the Cíes Islands sit a short boat ride from Vigo and Baiona, with a beach that regularly gets compared to the Caribbean for the color of its water. Daily visitor numbers are capped by the national park authority, so ferry tickets and access permits need booking in advance, especially across summer.

4. Follow the Rías Baixas coastline

South of Santiago, the coast breaks into a series of rías — flooded river valleys lined with pine, eucalyptus, and vineyards running almost to the waterline. This is southern Galicia’s most scenic drive, threading fishing ports, seafood shacks, and Albariño estates between one inlet and the next.

5. Explore Vigo, Galicia’s biggest city

Vigo doesn’t get the postcard reputation of Santiago, but it’s the region’s largest city, its main port, and a genuinely good base for exploring the Rías Baixas and the Cíes Islands ferry departures. The old town’s steep streets and seafood markets are worth an afternoon on their own, and it’s an easy jump-off point for vigo wine tours into the surrounding Albariño country.

6. Stand at Cabo Fisterra, the “end of the world”

Long before Columbus, this granite cape on the Costa da Morte marked the western limit of the known world for many Iberian travelers, and pilgrims who finish the Camino sometimes extend their walk here just to watch the sunset from the lighthouse. The coastline around Finisterre (Fisterra in Galician) is rugged, wind-scoured, and largely empty of crowds.

7. Drive the wild Costa da Morte

North of Fisterra, the Costa da Morte — the “Coast of Death,” named for the shipwrecks its cliffs and currents once caused — strings together isolated beaches, fishing villages, and lighthouses with none of the polish of Rías Baixas. It’s the part of coastal Galicia that rewards a rental car and no fixed schedule.

8. Cruise or hike the Ribeira Sacra canyon

Inland along the Sil and Miño rivers, Ribeira Sacra cuts a canyon deep enough that monasteries were built directly into its cliffs centuries ago, and vineyards still cling to slate terraces too steep to farm by machine. Catamaran cruises run along the Sil canyon in season, and hiking trails follow the ridgeline above the vines — one of the natural areas in Galicia that feels furthest from any coastline.

Ribeira Sacra pairs naturally with a Lugo or Ourense stay — the canyon sits roughly equidistant between both cities.

9. Walk the Roman wall in Lugo

Lugo is the only city in the world still encircled by a complete, intact Roman wall, and you can walk its full loop above the old town for views over the rooftops. Inside the walls, the city keeps a slower pace than Santiago or Vigo, with tapas bars built into the old stone.

10. Soak in Ourense’s thermal river pools

Ourense sits on the Miño river and has turned its natural hot springs into free, open-air riverside pools — a genuinely unusual way to spend an afternoon in inland Galicia. The old town’s arcaded streets and Roman bridge round out a stop that most coastal-focused itineraries skip entirely.

11. Visit the gardens and camellias of Pazo de Oca

Often called Galicia’s “Versailles,” Pazo de Oca is a manor estate near Santiago known for its landscaped gardens, stone bridges over ornamental ponds, and one of the region’s most celebrated camellia collections, in bloom through late winter and early spring. Access to the gardens runs on set visiting hours, worth checking ahead of a visit.

12. Eat your way through Galician seafood towns

Galicia’s coast supplies much of Spain’s seafood, from mussels farmed on rafts in the rías to octopus served the classic pulpo a la gallega way. Villages along Rías Baixas and the Arousa estuary built their whole identity around what comes out of the water that morning.

13. Taste Albariño where it’s grown

Rías Baixas is Galicia’s best-known wine region, and driving between its vineyards — many family-run, with vines trained on granite pergolas right up to the coast — pairs naturally with the seafood towns nearby. It’s the one stretch of Galicia where wine, not scenery alone, is the main reason to slow down.

14. Cross into Portugal along the Miño border

The Miño river marks much of Galicia’s southern border with Portugal, and towns along it make an easy detour for travelers curious about the border with Portugal or continuing south into the Vinho Verde region. It’s a low-key way to close a Galicia trip without backtracking to Santiago.