Spain: A Coruña

Moving on in the Spanish trip:

We woke up on Sunday (the 26th) in the train station at A Coruña (the local, Galician name - La Coruña in Castilian Spanish), one of the larger cities in the province of Galicia. A Coruña is right on the north-northwestern coast of Spain. Why did we go to Galicia? Well, the Alworth family had visited a Galician restaurant in Madrid when they visited Colin there five years ago and they had such a good time they were intrigued and wanted to see Galicia and eat the food right there. 

From the train station, we took a taxi to downtown and the hostel. There was no answer at the hostel so we found a cafe nearby and sat there for a some time (the streets were dead and almost everything else was closed - they start things kind of late there). After we got checked into the hostel, the three sisters showered and rested while the rest of us went for a walk. First stop was Plaza de María Pita, where this picture is found at the base of a statue. Since pictures of the statue itself are so prevalent, I opted to include a picture of one of the plaques instead. Maria Pita was a citizen of the city who rallied the troops and started fighting after her husband died. The city was fighting against the English in 1589 who had come to retaliate against the attack from the Spanish Armada a year earlier.

Also on the walk, we had our first view of the porch structures typical of the region. The wind blows cold and hard off the sea so people were putting up windows on their back porches (yes, the fronts of the fishermen's houses faced *away* from the sea) so it would actually be fun to sit there. Because of these, A Coruña is known as "the glass city."

This is one side of the old fort (Castillo de San Anton) and the pretty bay. The fort is depicted in the María Pita scene above. We had a limited tour of it later and a look at part of a history museum inside.

While touring the fort: Colin and Karen sitting on top of one of the walls.

Rachel-monster on top of some rocks in the garden area near the tip of the fort furthest out in the water.

Later that day, many weren't hungry for dinner so Colin and I took a walk after calling my parents. We ended up walking to Torre de Hercules before ending up at a restaurant where we had a couple's dinner.

On Monday (December 27), we took a long walk along the seaside promenade (Paseo Maritimo) with the destination of Torre de Hercules. It was longer than the walk to it the night before because Colin and I had walked along streets and cut through the city to get there. It was quite gusty and the wind only picked up more as the walk progressed. I actually lost a mitten over the side of the handrail - I'd put it down to use the camera and a sudden gust carried away down to the rocks below. Fortunately, it wasn't terribly cold and the wind was to our backs for the hike.

This is me peeking into the House of Words or Casas das Palavras (I'm wearing my new hat which I really like). It is on the site of an ancient Moorish cemetery. Information online about this is difficult to find! I ended up resorting to the photo option in google maps just to confirm its name.

Here is the House of Words again. When you look inside, you can see all the words from Arabic that have been adopted into other languages along with quotes in various languages.

Nearby is Paseo de los Menhires. I could find even less information on these particular stone monoliths, but it seems that they were made and erected by a prehistoric people of which very little is known about. The menhirs/menhires can be found in other countries (wikipedia has an article on menhirs but doesn't mention Spain). Another unpictured object is what we called the Spanish Stonehenge but it is actually a tribute to Spanish Civil War so much more recent.

This is Sarah standing with a statue of Hercules on the Argonauts' ship.

Torre de Hercules from the distance with some pretty coastline views.

Torre de Hercules up close. I confess to chasing pigeons here and got close enough that I could feel the wind off the tip of one's wing. This isn't something I normally do ... I was just feeling silly.

After the walk, we took a short train ride from A Coruña to Santiago de Compostela. We weren't impressed with the hostel we'd stayed the night at and didn't feel like sticking around another night. Plus, there wasn't much else we were interested in seeing in A Coruña and we wanted to focus more on Santiago.