The first vice president of the Xunta de Galicia, Alfonso Rueda, accompanied by the territorial delegate of the Xunta in Pontevedra, Luis López, today learned about the Xacobeo Transfer project, a new sustainable nautical tourism service enabled in Baixo Miño to connect the Galician town of A Guarda with the Portuguese town of Caminha and from which both residents and tourists and pilgrims on the Portuguese Coastal Way can benefit.
From today, pilgrims who want to cross from Caminha to A Guarda have two boats, one of them electric, which connects the two docks. The new service facilitates and promotes the Camino de Santiago following the itinerary that starts in Porto and passes through Esposende, Viana del Castelo and Caminha and enters Galicia through A Guarda, passing through Baiona and Vigo until it joins the Portuguese Way in Redondela.
The first vice president stressed that it is also an attraction for tourism in general and a new service for residents on both sides of the Miño. “The Way is a link between Galicia and the north of Portugal that creates wealth and employment,” said Rueda in relation to the joint projects that Galicia and the north of Portugal have been articulating for decades for the benefit of their neighborhood.
The new service will be reinforced from the month of July with the authorization of its own and exclusive electric propulsion boat with regular trips in both directions. This activity will be carried out through the agreement signed between Turismo de Galicia and the Galician Association of Nautical Activities (Agan), which will be in charge of transport.
The nautical tourism project is completed with improvements to the A Guarda wharf and with the signaling of the Jacobean route and the complementary services set up in the area within the framework of a plan to promote the lower Miño that also includes hiking trails and itineraries around the area with sustainable means of transport.
Alfonso Rueda expressed his satisfaction with the implementation of a project that was a priority for the Galician Government which, within the framework of the Xacobeo, is working to promote the Way and wants to value the variant of the Portuguese Way along the Coast, a route full of attractions that in recent times has not stopped growing and that so far this year already exceeds 700 pilgrims who collected their Compostela.
The first vice-president highlighted the fact that this new service starts up coinciding with the entry into Holy Week with very favorable forecasts for tourist occupation in Galicia. These expectations are going to be reinforced with the nautical tourism project that will favor, above all, the promotion of the lower Miño. “The forecasts are very good and figures similar to those of the pre-pandemic or even better, almost historical, could be achieved,” said Alfonso Rueda.