Malpica is where the Costa da Morte, the Coast of Death, begins in earnest. The name sounds dramatic and it is earned. This long stretch of Galician coast, bristling with granite headlands, shoals and fog, has seen more shipwrecks than almost anywhere in Europe, and the people here have a long history of watching the sea for trouble and for the cargo that it sometimes delivered. Today Malpica is a working fishing port of about seven thousand people on a deep bay, with a harbour full of brightly coloured boats and a small town of white houses climbing the hill behind it.
The sea is the town's business. Out beyond the harbour lie the Sisargas islands, three granite islets that are a bird sanctuary and a place of old legends. They can be visited by boat in summer, and they hold huge colonies of gulls, shags and cormorants. The rocks along this shore are also famed for percebes, goose barnacles, a delicacy that is harvested by hand from the waves at great personal risk. Percebes are pricey and look unappealing, rather like dinosaur toes, but they taste of the cold sea, and Malpica is one of the best places to try them. Octopus, fried fish and mussels are also on every menu.
For a rider, Malpica is a good first stop on a long coastal day. The roads leading to the town from Carballo cross rolling country of pine, eucalyptus and small farms, with dry-stone walls and granite crosses at the junctions. The surface is usually fine, if narrow in places, and the corners are gentle. Along the coast, the road climbs and dips between fishing villages and headlands, with views of long beaches and big Atlantic swells. Fog can come in quickly, and the wind off the sea is strong and cool. In the dry season, you can ride with long, sunny views, but in wet weather the granite surfaces and wet leaves require extra care.
Malpica has fuel, shops and plenty of places to eat, so it is a fine place to resupply before heading west and south along the coast. The more remote stretches toward Laxe have fewer services. Carballo, about fifteen kilometres inland, is a bigger town with everything.
Climb the hill to the Monte Atalaia viewpoint, where the whole bay lies spread out below you, and watch the fishing boats come home.