Processes of Change in Olveiroa, A Hostel Village

Abstract

On the Camino to Finisterre, on the second night after leaving Santiago, many pilgrims sleep in Olveiroa, a small village with two hostels and a hotel. By shifting the focus from the pilgrims to the local population and landscape, this chapter aims to bring to the fore the changes in a small village and how these changes have affected the local landscape. This chapter offers a diachronic study of the rural landscape of Olveiroa in order to analyze the transformations of the landscape that are mainly related to the abandonment of the main transit route and village center that continued until the end of the twentieth century, the construction of a road, and the development of pilgrimage. The remodeling of the footpaths or caminos, related, among other factors, to the reactivation of the Camino to Finisterre, changed the landscape of Olveiroa. This chapter presents the concept of a pilgrimage landscape, which is a landscape that is remodeled and linked to Galicia’s foremost tourist attraction: the Camino.