After our very enjoyable visit to Aquarium Finisterrae we set our sights on the nearby landmark of the Tower of Hercules, our intended destination for this somewhat unexpected port stop in A Coruña. We have certain things we like to see when we’re travelling and both aquariums and historical buildings are amongst them.
The Tower of Hercules is the oldest known Roman lighthouse to still be standing, dating from the first century C.E., although much of what is seen nowadays comes from an eighteenth century restoration to preserve the core of the Roman structure. The original lighthouse had a spiral ramp around this core and you can see evidence of that in the brickwork.
We were looking forward to our visit of the tower right up until we rounded a corner and saw the crowd of schoolchildren at its base and the sight of another couple of full buses turning up. My wife expressed her desire to perhaps leave visiting the UNESCO heritage site for another day, certain that we’d return. Her actual words, should you be interested, were “Fuck that for a laugh.”
Sometimes you’ve just got to be flexible about your plans, and this cruise had certainly given us many opportunities to demonstrate that, particularly during our couple of days in Lisbon earlier in it. We decided we’d simply hug the coastline a little more and circle around and back towards the port knowing that there would be nice views to see and the opportunity for some liquid refreshment.
One of the first things to catch my eye was a monument across the road from us. This was the memorial to victims of fascism. Memorials like this can be infuriating when you see the same selfish power struggles and political leanings starting to surface once more, as they are now. The people who most need to understand the meaning and human cost of fascism are the ones least capable of it and most likely to be coaxed into working against their own interests by the rich and powerful, thinking all the time that they’re one of them and not simply very disposable tools. Ask me someday about what else I’d like to see next to memorials like this.
Back to cheerier matters and our continuing clockwise wander around A Coruña’s coast. Far smaller than Orzán beach that we’d already seen we next passed San Amaro Bay which had its own beach of golden sand as well as a health and fitness club with outdoor swimming pools, all looking very popular on this warm day.
A mosaic artwork on a viewpoint area along the promenade might have made for a better photo opportunity for the city had it not been obstructed by a street lamp. I do wonder about the mentality of people sometimes. “Ah, visitors will enjoy this pleasing artwork. Not all at once, of course, unless they’re less than half a metre away from it.”
We headed into the city and away from the shoreline once we reached Rúa Veramar and the reason for that was because there was a microbrewery in that direction. This was Malte Atochas and, as we got close to it, we saw that it was popular. However, according to our map there was another Malte place nearer the port so we foolishly decided to bypass this first one. We won’t make that mistake again because a closed and very abandoned-looking building was all that could not be found where the map said the latter was.
The stone structure below is a mystery to me. I’ve seen three different explanations for it as either a guard’s shelter or a shrine or a former water fountain. There was a time when you could simply plug in a few keywords with quotes in the right places and Google would sort you out no problem but these days the same query will produce different hallucinations from the AI (which it isn’t) slop machine that has priority over search index results, and none of it can be trusted. I may as well declare that the photo below is a public artwork representing the majesty of man by a Galician sculptor.
We didn’t look inside the Church of St George, merely admiring the lovely Baroque exterior as we walked the streets, but it’s a place with an interesting note in history attached to it. In 1901 it was the site of Spain’s first same-sex marriage thanks to a little subterfuge by the celebrants, Marcela Gracia Ibeas and Elisa Sánchez Loriga. I’m a big fan of subterfuge when it comes to religion.
If you’re on a cruise ship and you visit A Coruña and you walk around and somehow don’t end up in María Pita Square then congratulations on being weird. Everyone else ends up here at some point. The town hall building on the north side of this huge public space is a beautiful building indeed with metallic tiles on the domes of the towers that gleam like scales on a reptile when the sun hits them.
María Pita, for whom the square is named, is an absolutely fascinating character. Ordinarily, in a post like this, I’d summarise her life and key events, but between this visit recorded here back in 2024 and this write-up now at a mysterious time only discernible if you’re able to read the RSS content associated with it (Ha! That’ll teach you for not knowing about the web standards that underlie the internet!) we returned to A Coruña and looked around the house museum in the city dedicated to her so I’ll leave this until I get around to that account. For now, though, just know that the square is a vast open space with lovely architecture around it and a sculpture to the local heroine created by José Castiñeiras Iglesias who also made the surfers sculpture on Orzán Beach.
This was the point where we headed off in search of that other microbrewery only to discover that the Google Maps information was appallingly inaccurate and so we ended up near the waterfront of the marina in view of our ship in the cruise port instead. We had low expectations of the place and, indeed, the beer was general lager, indistinguishable from any other. And we might have left then if we’d not spotted some people at another table having some sangria delivered. Needless to say but we decided to stay for another drink. Or three. Accompanied by a random selection of crisps and sweets because that’s something Spanish bars like to do. We don’t disapprove.
We never wait until the very last minute before returning to the ship but it wasn’t far off all aboard time before we headed back towards Ventura as we could see her from our seats and had a decent idea how long it would take us to walk back. We like to spend as much time ashore as we can, spending locally if we can. We’re not that type of cruiser who gets off, does very little ashore, then gets back to save money by having the free food or included drinks on the ship. The number of times we watch cruise bloggers posting videos about late breakfasts, time ashore, then getting back to have lunch on the ship. It’s not a good look. Yes, the world does have tightarses in it; that’s the nature of humans. But you’re cruisers. You’re already despised by people who are way too stupid and lazy to know any better. Don’t make it easy for them. Promote the good things you’re doing for local communities while cruising.
Cruise ships at A Coruña typically dock at the southern side of a convention centre which features a pair of male and female sculptures on its northern and southern sides. For some reason those to the north are lying down, and those to the south are standing erect. Well, not erect, exactly. “Are you using your zoom lens?” asked a fellow passenger heading back to the ship as I grabbed one of the photos. Everyone’s a comedian.
And with that we returned to our ship to enjoy the sail away from the final port of call.
We had a sea day before arriving in Southampton but there were few photos and not enough content to warrant another write-up so this concludes our 2024 Iberian coast cruise aboard P&O Ventura.
We’re totally biased because we think all cruises are great, and this one was no different. A great experience to spend two days in Portugal’s capital and to head off into the Douro Valley for my birthday. Ventura’s a lovely ship – she’s Grand-class and we love Grand-class ships – and we’ll be back aboard her again.