THE CRAFT ROUTE

 

Galician genuine culture is strongly linked to its powerful popular traditions and crafts, which transmit spontaneously archaic shapes and contemporary interpretations.   The journey can begin entering by the north right to the capital of Bergantinos, Carballo. In Vista Alegre, Eduardo Vidal makes the Galician traditional shoe, the clog.        Very close from Carballo, there is Buno, the most important pottery center of Galicia. The whole village lives for the pottery, which is exhibited in the famous Mostra de Alfareria de Buno.     Leaving the main highway in Ponte-Ceso, homeland of Bard Eduardo Pondal, the road drives you to Corme, where anyone can find the best barnacle in the world or Galadriel leather shop.

 

Back to the main route, entering in the lands of Soneira, the visitor discovers a very ancient Galician industry, the Linen. The Friends of Linen Association owns a Linen Museum in A Cacharoza, Baio, the same village where Manuel Varela has got a clog workshop. Some other linen centers can be visited in Zas and Vimianzo.      In Vimianzo, the old Moscoso's castle museum opens its doors during the summertime to show a wide collection of Galician crafts and clothes.        In Ponte-do-Porto another road drives the traveller to Camarinas, the bobbin lace capital. In Camarinas, Ponte-do-Porto and Muxia, the old hand-made lace industry occupies nowadays 3.500 artisans in the whole district.       Turning from the ocean landscape to the Costa da Morte countryside, green fields and hills shelter the village of Mazaricos, where Josefa Moreiro, in Cibes de Abaixo, Coruns, is one of the last artisans of the old Sancosmeiro hat .      End or beginning of the Craft Route, for those who enter the Costa da Morte by the south, the village of Carnota has got some ceramic and stone carving workshops.