Skip to main content

La Coruña

We sailed past the Tower of Hercules Lighthouse at some ungodly hour this morning... actually it was about 8.00am but I had had an unusually bad night (too much ice cream) so I was unenthusiasic but Fred took a great photo. 
Another punishing day as a tourist in Northern Spain this time we are berthed at la Coruña, which is a huge sprawling city with a lot of very tall white buildings but when you get into bits of the town it has a real Spanish feel about it.  We decided to do less today than we had done yesterday - only of course - it didn't work out like that....

Walking through town we took in some very ornate local buildings but also a lot of souless high appartment blocks - its a real mish mash of styles which doesnt make for a particulary pleasing end result.  Its also quite tatty in place reminiscent of inner city leeds or similar... some of the old buildings are quite interestingly textural though🤣
We walked through town taking a fairly diect route to the Tower of Hercules... the site of a lighthouse that has been there for centuries.  The most recent building was rebuilt sometime in the 1700's and it is a fairly spectacular landmark. 
The tower sits on the headland and once e had explored it Dr Fred was tempted by some granite cliffs and I just wandered around the many paths winding up and down the hill.  This alone probably added a couple of miles ontoour 'easy... restday' walk.
Again we were lucky with the weather - tshirts and waistcoats in December but by the time we walked along the promenade back into town the clouds were coming in and we found a beautiful little coffee shop and sat inside while deciding whether to explore the old town or not.  The old town wasn't too far away so we stretched our limbs and had a mooch around.... trouble was by this time two major factors were against us... monday closing - common in Spain and afternoon siesta... defo common in Spain.So.. not much happening apart from more stunning architecture and the discovery of some giant metal crowns which will light up once its dark.
Back at the marina under the shadow of the cruise ship the little boats bobbed about and I couldn't help wondering if the moorings were colour coded

Another 8 miles covered on our easy walk!!! Not sure if I can keep this up for another couple of days🤣🤣

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Almost last chapter... In which our Go Stargazing team watch Astonishing Aurora Borealis seen from the deck of the Astonishing Borealis!!!

The weather brightened considerably and the snowy peaks lining our sail down the fjiords  looked glorious and sparkly in the sunshine against a (mainly) blue sky back drop.   More awesome scenary.... the Go Stargazing team wrapt up their lectures ... only searching for the illusive Northern Lights remained.  The tension from the night before dissolved in the sunshine the forecast for Aurora borealis was looking fairly positive - it was the captains farewell cocktsil party so everyone had their gladrags on.. We ate dinner and sky remained clear so we headed back to our room and donned as many layers as we could move in and proceeded to deck 10 in anticipation of stars and northern lights..... it did not dissappiont - just we got there as the bridge announced that the lights could be seen on the starboard side of the ship. It was stunning. Slowly the intensity built. The auroral green became brighter and bigger areas appe...

Vigo

We left the ship to explore Vigo. Its a much larger place then we expected... although tbh I hadn't given ut a lot of thought. Its a real mish mash of old and new and having got a map from tourist info we decided to follow the walking trail to the Monte Castro... the highest point of the town.  Most of the town was pretty much as everywhere else... lots of traffic... lots of people... one or two interesting buildings and a lot of shopping. We headed to the art gallery - this has been a year of gallery visits so we we seen o reason to change now.  The Museo de Marco is housed in the towns ex prison building and its very grand. In fact, I think that on this occaision the building might have been more interesting than the art....  Although the visiting exhibition by Susanne S D Themlitz was strangely compelling. It was a huge varied collection of eclectic items... found, salavaged, manipulated and arranged in lots of ways - weirdly inspiring - and mostly enjoyable to look at...

verdant lushness

Its a never ending island hop... today we hopped of the boat at Kingstown, on the island St. Vincents and Grenadine. Once through the usual port duty free - cheap booze and diamonds to go milarkey we were straight into the town... crazy noisy smelly chaos... refreshingly no tat shops for tourists, just local markets and street traders all vying for local sales.  Music blasting from everywhere, cars (very battered and often very pimped) all over the roads - parked in the middle of the street, loading, unloading, chatting seemingly oblivious to the total traffic jam caused behind them...  We walked through this mayhem - the temperatures were rising probably about 30 degrees - tourists evident by trying to walk on the shady side of the street - even when we turned off the main drag and there were less people it was still like carnival time with music blasting everywhere. Its very atmospheric and mostly promotes a good vibe although I have heard '3 little birds' everywhich way a...