CAPE VILAN
 
  
 
Resistant to the Atlantic Ocean and the north wind, the imposing Cape Vilan is located in a legendary land.
 
Vilan Lighthouse, master of the Costa da Morte  

Located on the granitic Cape Vilan, the sober lighthouse guides the marine traffic of the Costa da Morte. Due to the danger of this coast, the old fire tower became in 1896 a powerful electric lighthouse. 

The ever blowing northern wind  here, shapes rocks and creates strange figures like the Pedra do Oso (Bear Stone). The wind becomes energy as well in the buzzing aeolian power central. 
   
Vilan natural area's attractiveness are easy to visit. The footpath begins in Camariñas, after the ruins of Soberan Castle. Between the town and the Cape there is the beautiful Lago beach and the Virxe do Monte's Chapel, with a good view of Muxia. 

The path continues to the Englishmen Cemetery, before which the walker will find the Foxo dos Lobos, an original construction for wolves hunting. Along the coast, there are the solitary beaches of Pedrosa, Balea, Reira and Trece, the bay that watched the shipwreck of the Serpent. Right here, the highest dune of Europe, the Monte Branco, rises up culminating on 200 mt. high on the sea level.

 
 
 
National Natural Area 
   
The Cape Vilan is a high ecologically valued area, candidate to the European IBAS (Important Bird Areas) for its important ornithological colony : Vilan's cliffs are refuge of some species like the Hydrobates pelagicus, Rissa tridactyla, Phalacrocarax aristotelis, Falco peregrinus and the Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax.   
   
The flora in the Vilan shows the difficulty of growing in this windy ambient. The Camarina (Corena album), a unique Galician-Portuguese plant, is typical of this natural space.   
   
The area is also rich in other Atlantic or own Galician plants like the Iberis procumbens subsp. procumbens, Armoria pubigera, Sagina merino, Silene scabriflora subsp. gallaecica, or the Equinus rosulatum.  Of equal interest are the Trifolium occidentale, Euphorbia portlandica, Matricaria marine subsp. marine and the Agrostis stolomifera.