It seems entirely fitting to be arriving in La Coruña by ship. For over 2,000 years this port town has held much maritime importance, first for the Romans when it became a key location in navigation routes and later as a fortified harbour. It was here that the Spanish managed to defeat Sir Francis Drake in 1589, the resistance led by local heroine María Pita. In 1809, the British General Sir John Moore was killed here during the Battle of Corunna. His tomb still stands in the Garden of San Carlos, an official historic and artistic site situated in the centre of Coruna’s old town. Now here I am, almost arriving in the same way that those pirates, naval heroes, and salty seadogs have for so many years, only I’m clutching my coffee on the top deck of the extravagant 3,000-passenger Sapphire Princess, dressed in a fluffy, white, Princess-branded robe, carefully considering which fancy pastries I’ll plunder from the buffet for my breakfast. Hardly the style in which Drake arrived, is it?
From my vantage point on board, the harbourside of La Coruña glitters like a long mirror ball in the morning light. A panoramic procession of galeria style buildings lines the harbour-front area of ‘Marina Avenue’ where the intricate white woodwork frames are filled with thousands of window panes that reflect the glittering Atlantic, giving La Coruña its nickname the City of Glass. These balconies, enclosed in a glass frame protecting them from Galicia’s cool winters, make them usable all year round and are fairly unique to this region.
Although the modernist 19th and 20th-century galerias dominate the harbour, I only need to take a short, 5-minute walk from the cruise ship into the old town’s claustrophobic streets, where cobbled lanes roll up and down hills, winding past gothic churches, stately plazas, imposing fortifications and all manner of medieval relics, to see that every possible style of galeria is on display.
I visited La Coruña as part of a 7-day cruise with Princess Cruises, leaving from Southampton and stopping off at La Coruña, Bilbao, Bordeaux and Guernsey. Click here to find similar cruises.
I decide to get my bearings in Plaza de María Pita, a vast porticoed city square lined with terraces and tapas bars, named after the formidable fisherwoman who fought off Sir Francis Drake’s attack in 1589. Dominated on one side by the extravagant, turreted council building and the baroque church of Igrexa de San Xurxo on an another, I can’t help but think that this would be the perfect spot to decamp on an evening, a glass of wine in hand and tapas coming thick and fast. However, Galicia’s reputation for inclemency seems completely justified, the grey skies and constant drizzle put an end to my alfresco ambitions.
Despite the Baroque, neoclassical and gothic architecture of the city’s medieval quarter, La Coruna manages to be at once both beautiful and rough-hewn. Modern, yet with the saltiness and faded grandeur that plagues most harbour towns. Occupying a 2km long, contorted isthmus off the Galician coast, the town can appear to be one long sea-front, bookended by Riazor – one of northern Spain’s best urban beaches – on one side, and the harbour on the other. The Paseo Marítimo, a winding 13km walkway and bike path, runs all the way from the port, around the tip of the peninsula, and back along Riazor itself. With just 8 short hours in the city, walking a section seems the perfect way to see as much of the town as possible.
I make my way past the bars, trendy shops, and graffiti-covered streets of the city’s grungy Orzan district towards the 1km stretch of wide, golden sand that makes up Riazor. Huddled in the morning mist at one end of the beach stands the stout outline of the Riazor stadium, home of Deportivo La Coruña (“el Depor”). Despite Deportivo’s past glory, their stint in the top flight of Spanish football came to an end in 2010 (and again in 2013 after a brief return to top-tier football) and they have since struggled to reverse their decline, most notably just missing out on promotion to La Liga this season when they lost 3-2 in the playoff finals to RCD Mallorca.
While the city’s football team may be struggling to return itself to former glory, La Coruña itself is attempting to put itself on the map culturally and artistically with museums like the Museo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (Muncyt) and Domus (House of Man). Domus stands on the eastern edge of Riazor like a giant, curved sail. Designed by the Japanese architect Arata Isozaki, the facade is made up of over 6,600 pieces of slate while inside, the 200 exhibitions, most of which are interactive, take visitors through different aspects of humanity, such as the I (identity), We (demography), the Senses, through a variety of different art forms and media. Muncyt is just as impressive architecturally. Designed by architects Victoria Acebo and Angel Alonso, it’s a glittering, modernist succession of concrete and glass housing engaging exhibitions of Spain’s technological heritage.
It’s a much older attraction that has brought me to the Paseo Marítimo though. At the rugged, blustery tip of the city’s peninsula looms the Tower of Hercules, a UNESCO world heritage site and Roman lighthouse, built in the 1st century AD, when its beacon marked the very limits of their empire. It is still functioning today and considered to be the world’s oldest working lighthouse. Now an official National Monument, it was built during the rule of Emperor Trajan and was fully restored in 1791 by Charles III. Throughout the centuries, many mythical stories have been told about the origin of the lighthouse, and of La Coruna itself. One such tale claims that Hercules slew the tyrant Geryon here. He then buried the head of Geryon with his weapons and ordered that a city be built on the site.
By the time I’m done visiting the tower, the Spanish sun is finally starting to fend off the Galician cold and I make my way to La Coruña’s prime tapas territory. From the tiny tascas of Calle Barrera to the high-class marisquerías of the town’s plazas, seafood is the order of the day, such is expected of a Spanish harbour city. The midday crowds are already beginning to fill the small bars and terrace tables of Calle Estrella, hiding with their glasses of Ribeiro wine in the shade of the galerias that overhang the narrow streets.
I duck inside La Bombilla, a non-descript looking tapas joint at the corner of Rúa Torreiro that is typical in its simplicity and brimming more with locals than tourists. The menu is simple, with a list of 10 or so dishes, all priced at the incredibly tempting price of €1.10 each. Tortillas, croquettes and meatballs sit in heated dishes on the bar beneath a class counter, just waiting to be served to the patrons lined at the bar. I opt for, obviously, some seafood, ordering a plate of crisp, fresh calamari alongside some chorizo, and crusty bread washed down with a helping of Estrella Galicia, La Coruña’s signature beer. My whole meal comes to less than €5 and is a great welcome to Galician cuisine, particularly the Caldo Gallego, an emblematic dish of fortifying stew made of broth, beans, vegetables and a variety of meats that the people of northern Spain devour to fight off the winter chill.
By the time I leave, the sun is out in full force and the glazed facade of the harbourside galleries are once again glittering in the sun. I have time for one quick Sangria beside the Atlantic, Sapphire Princess just a 2-minute walk away, awaiting my tipsy return so that we can set sail for another Spanish city. It may be the change in the weather, but by the afternoon, I’m warming to La Coruna; between the surfers and families braving the waters of Riazor beach, to the fascinating history and buzzing food scene, there is plenty to like. It may not be much visited by foreign tourists, or even on many peoples Spain itinerary – perhaps because it’s not on the way to anywhere – but I’m glad we had the chance to stop by.
In our 8 hours in the charming, Galician town of La Coruna, we may not have managed to fully explore or conquer the city, but we certainly did better than Drake and Moore. We came, we saw, we ate some bloody good tapas.
This post has been created as part of a sponsored collaboration with Princess Cruises, however, all views expressed are my own.
