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September 2026

- Las Catedrales -

Adventures are not found only in children’s books or in the tales told by the daring. Sometimes even a perfectly harmless situation can take an adventurous turn – for instance when my passion for plein-air painting proves stronger than my common sense.

One of our stopping points on our journey southwards along Europe’s Atlantic coast was Las Catedrales in Galicia. These are very high rock arches, carved out of the cliffs by the sea, which stand one behind another like the side aisle of a Gothic cathedral. The beach leading to the Catedrales may only be entered at low tide. As a painter, I was especially pleased that on the day of our visit in September, low tide did not begin until late afternoon. For it is only in the evening sun that the rocks begin to glow and the enormous arches reveal their full beauty. While hundreds of tourists streamed towards the Catedrales as soon as the barrier was opened, my husband and I stayed a little further back, waiting until most of them had made their way back up the very long, steep staircase to the excursion buses. We walked across the damp sand into a vast space that felt like a natural cathedral. On a patch of sand in front of a high, semicircular rock wall, I took up position: my paint box with its small painting block resting on my left forearm, a fine brush in my right hand, my painting bag slung across my shoulder. We were not the only ones looking forward to the evening light. A few metres away, a photographer planted his tripod in the soft sand and began fiddling with his cameras and lenses. While my husband and the photographer’s companion explored the vast expanse of the Catedrales, we set to work on our respective tasks. I sketched the view of the rock arches; he photographed them. But we were both waiting for that special light that would transform the rocks into a sea of colour.

“Hurry up,” Klaus urged me when he came back. “The water’s already rising.” – “Yes, yes.” – “You should leave now. The tide is coming in,” insisted a young man in a high-visibility vest, wading towards us through the ankle-deep water. “I’m not coming back to warn you again.” – “Go on,” I encouraged Klaus. “I only need a few more minutes.” Soon everyone had left the vast rock-arch area. Only the photographer and I remained. With every wave, the water crept a little higher, but the glowing colours I was waiting for were still missing – just as the photographer was still waiting for that crucial light. At last, the sun had sunk low enough. The moment we had been waiting for had arrived. I worked at breakneck speed, adding the missing patches of colour to the paper. Then, in a matter of seconds, I stuffed my painting block, brushes and watercolour box into my shoulder bag and, like the photographer, began trudging through the first powerful waves of the advancing tide.

As I looked back at the sand of the cathedral floor now being washed by the sea and the hungry surf licking at the rock walls, I suddenly remembered an adventure book that had captivated me as a child. In it, a group of friends searching for a pirate treasure had only just escaped from a labyrinth of caves before the rising sea caught up with them. Now I, too, reached dry land just in time – not with a treasure, but with a little watercolour tucked safely in my bag.

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