Today has been a another off-the-bike day after quite a long riding session yesterday which was about 8 hours 'in the saddle'. We decided that we'd take the bus halfway to town and then walk right round the peninsula. Took us about 3 hours without any stops: there weren't any coffee shops nor street vendors but about an hour and half in we got to the Hercules Tower: more of that later on. We started at the main beach front in A Coruña which looked like this in the early morning mist - by early morning I mean by the time we'd got there by bus and walked ...er....about 9.30am.
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| Beach in A Coruña - we walked right round this in 20 mins |
From here you can't see the Hercules Tower 'cos it is still quite a way round the coast - we walked around this beach along a wide promenade shared with runners (lots of these), cyclists (who had their own two-way bit of road) and lots of walkers of all shapes and sizes, quite often, but not always, in pairs....er.....like us.
We did wonder who actually goes to work as everyone seemed to be out and about enjoying the early coolness walking, running or plodding.
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| Hercules Tower in A Coruña |
Apparently the Hercules Tower is the oldest lighthouse in the world - there has been a building of some sort here warning ships of dangerous rocks and 'land' since the 3rd Century even though we thought that THIS tower looked a lot younger than something built way back then.
It was great, however, that there was absolutely no rubbish, no advertising and no shops or suchlike for the whole way and so was very pleasant to wander along and take in the beauty of the place.
On our walk to get there there were only a few people but once we spied the bus park there was, suddenly, a multitude of folk .....almost burst into a carol then, sorry.....
Lots of people walked the short distance from their vehicle to the tower.
There was a very good piper half way up and he got a donation from us. His accompanying drummer was about 200 years old tho' and looked REALLY fed up at having to be there at all. Didn't take a pic as his scowl would've had Medusan effect!
Half way up the actual tower this is the view of where we'd walked, the original beach just visible in the lower right hand corner - there was such a queue to right up to the top of the tower that we didn't hang around and continued our walk.
It was all very spectacular in a touristy kind of way.
Here's the tower from the other side and looking out to sea. The Tall Ships are due to arrive on Saturday and already about 8 are in the harbour. We did see one big clipper coming in - too distant for a pic but we're going to visit that when we go back in tonight for out our nightly tapas etc....
You could still hear the piper (and grim-faced accomplice) from this far away, by the way.
So this (below) is where we will end up tonight in the hope that a few more Tall Ships will have sailed in and parked (or whatever it is that they do....sorry all you sailors!). I'd like to point out the glass-fronted buildings all along the harbour - this is, apparently, the back of the houses and if you walk up the main street their fronts are rather splendid too. We're unsure of the exact function of the glass windows but we suspect some sort of double-glazing insulation thing. No Tall Ships in any pics yet but I might post a couple when we get back later.
Last night we ate far to much in the cafe right by our hotel, in the middle of this industrial estate, and didn't even have a nightcap before bed! An enthusiastic waiter made us over-order and then we had to leave a glass of wine each 'cos we just couldn't fit any more in: what piggies we are!
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| A Coruña Harbour - getting ready for the arrival of the Tall Ships. |
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