A Coruña

 Light, Stone, Sea and Glass... 

Here is the Head City, keeper and key of the kingdom of Galicia. It was born from a port and a lighthouse... It was called Brigantia, County of Lighthouse, and Crunia... Today, A Coruña continues to be the lighthouse that lights the sailor at night and the city-lighthouse that shows the route to the future.

We arrive in A Coruña through the bridge called Ponte da Pasaxe to discover or rediscover it, to live its modern and secular attractiveness.

By the way, we are near the Ponte do Burgo. The oldest royal path passed along this bridge towards A Coruña.

There are really other spots to enter the city but we enter through the way coming from Madrid or Lugo that gets into A Coruña through the Ponte da Pasaxe.

The dense traffic shows us what we are going to find a bit later: the modern city with wide roads and crowds of industrious people. But A Coruña is also a city where you can have a rest, a tourist and cultural city, which has achieved the difficult balance and harmony between past and present.

At the bottom of Ponte we can find two options: the old access going around the coast or the new Alfonso Molina Avenue, which leads us to the centre of A Coruña.

A stop on the way lets us have a small sight of the city that is waiting for us. In the distance, the Hercules Tower (Torre de Hércules) reminds us of its leader and symbol role. It lies in the northern part of the city and is considered the lady of the night in the sea of A Coruña.

We enter the great city in northern Galicia: a quarter of a million people, twenty centuries of history and a privileged place between earth and sea.

A Coruña, which was nearly an island many years ago, is nowadays an urban peninsula whose corners are full of activity and life.

We start the route at the junction of both ways. And here we already find the port, its first raison dêtre. Here we find the oil, woods and fishing port, which was already important two thousand years ago, when Julius Caesar arrived there with his army. It was coveted by the Normans...

Charles I went out from here towards Germany and the Empire.

The Spanish Armada left this port to fight against England.

The port in A Coruña is nowadays a place of great activity, a source of wealth and a guarantee to connect the city with all the port cities in the world.

Near the place where we are now, in the park of Santa Margarita (St Margaret), we find the Science House (Casa de las Ciencias), which is a good example of the cultural role of the city. It is an initiative from the town council of this city, the second in Spain as far as its importance is concerned. The wonderful installations show the visitors, and mainly the children, the big world that surrounds us: the natural environment -rural or urban- and the cosmos.

In Riazor we find a very important sports complex. 

Our final goal will be the historical city, the traces of the passage of time.

We follow modern roads that lead us to the centre of the city or the most important beaches in A Coruña: Riazor and Orzán. In summer thousands of people enjoy the sun and the sea in an urban environment that offers comforts and rest.

In A Coruña there are very modern business areas to draw people’s attention and traditional streets like St Andrés, Rúa Nueva and gastronomic streets par excellence like Olmos, also called The Star.

There are beautiful places to go for a walk just as Los Cantones or the business area called El Obelisco. Here was the area called La Pescadería where inhabitants of A Coruña fought against the English army in 1589 to defend their city.

In front of Los Cantones we can see La Rosaleda, Méndez Núñez Gardens (with stone and bronze sculptures of illustrious Galician people), the wonderful building of La Terraza, which today is a modern communication centre and the newspaper kiosk Alfonso, which today is an art gallery under the authority of the Town Hall of A Coruña.

More than 100 years later, the voice of the famous Galician writer Curros Enríquez still sounds fresh and lively in honour of this city:

Ouh, meiga cibdá da Coruña,
cibdá que por sobre os mares
érgue-la cabeza altiva,
cal onte nas túas murallas
o brazo de María Pita:

¿Qué tés nese teu recinto
qué tés prós que te visitan
que coñecerte non poden
sin que deixarte non sintan?.

As an intermediate step between present and past we find the Galleries of A Coruña.

Although the famous writer Mrs Emilia Pardo Bazán thought of them as cages and similar to pantheons, they were called "Quitapesares" in A Coruña. For the writer Torrente Ballester they were like a cure for the absence and he needed watch them once a year at least. They were worth the name "The Glass City" (La Ciudad de Cristal) for A Coruña.

They date from the early 19th century and synthesized the artisan work of the carpenters who made ships with the work of the new glass industry, which was born in Orzán by that time.

They have a practical value as they regulate the temperature letting the sun in and acting as a shock-absorbing chamber against the rigors of winter. They have also an exceptional aesthetic value and are a real symbol in A Coruña.

We are almost in the old city and the urban geometry is perfect in María Pita Square (Plaza de María Pita). In three sides of this square the houses -each of them on three arches- show balconies and galleries in an upward progression.

In this square we can find the Palacio Municipal, which dates from the beginning of the present century. The most important events of the history and legend of the city are performed in the assembly hall of this palace.

We get into the old city and leave the modern, cosmopolitan and present-day A Coruña. We enter the historical city.

For a first contact we look at the city-lighthouse, Hercules Tower. Tradition has it that Breogán saw the green land of Ireland in a clear morning. The legend says that the demigods Hercules and Gerion fought to the death. Hercules got the victory and Gerion was buried under the foundations of this tower.

The history confirms that the lighthouse might have been erected in the 2nd century under Trajan’s kingdom. It is also thought to have been very important for navigation. The legend also says that in the 15th century the Irmandiños (peasants’ revolt in the Middle Ages) destroyed the outside-door, which in the time of Charles III was doted with the Roman staircase of the outer cover we can see today. It is represented in the shield of the city since the beginning of the 16th century.

In the basis there are two plaques, which recall the most important monuments in its history. The most modern one refers to the reconstruction directed by the architect Eustaquio Giannini and the oldest one to its erection perhaps 1700 years ago by the architect from Coimbra, Cayo Servio Lupo, who dedicated it to the God Mars.

It is the only Romanesque lighthouse which is still in service nowadays. It is 105 metres high and from the viewpoint we can see a great view of A Coruña and the magnitude of the Atlantic Ocean.

Another point of historical reference is the fort of Elviña on the other extreme of the city. An important battle took place there during the Independence War. Very important objects were found in A Coruña during the Roman period.

We return to the Old City to go through the most important streets: Herrería, Tabernas, Panaderas... and visit the main monuments one by one.

As our destiny is the Castle of St Antón we leave the farthest spot of the city until we reach our destiny.

In the street Panaderas we find the Convent of Capuchinas, which was founded in the 17th century with a church of the 18th. This church is thought to have been built by Casas y Novoa, the author of Obradoiro façade, at Santiago's Cathedral. In the façade there is an image of the Virgen de las Maravillas (Virgin of Wonders) whose devotion there was a chapel in this place some years ago.

The Museo de Fine Arts Museum (Bellas Artes) occupies the building of the old Royal Maritime Consulate (Real Consulado Marítimo) of the 18th century. In the art gallery there are works of outstanding romantic Galician painters: Ovidio Murguía, Parada Justel, and the Brothers Brocos... We can also find valuable pottery and numismatics.

It also functions as a state library and see of the Royal Fine Arts Academy.

The Church of St Nicolás is baroque from the 18th century and the façade from the 19th. It has only a nave with lateral chapels and it contains the side- chapel for the Virgen de los Dolores of a great devotion in A Coruña.

We find the Church of St Jorge very near. It is baroque from the 17th century and was planned by Domingo de Andrade. It belonged to the Jesuits and then to the Agustinians. After secularization the Town Hall established in the old convent and the parish church of St Jorge in the convent’s church.

In the street Tabernas the Royal Galician Academy is situated in a building of the 18th century where Mrs Emilia Pardo Bazán lived. There is also a museum dedicated to the great writer of the Spanish 19th century.

The Church of St James (Santiago) is Romanesque from the 12th century but with ogival influences because of many repairs and later reconstructions due to several fires.

It is the oldest church in A Coruña. In the 14th century the town council met at the porch whenever the bell pealed. It is thought that gunpowder was kept in one of the towers in order to defend the city. The dedication to St James is due to his attention to pilgrims that came by sea to the city of the Apostle.

Here is the old Church of Gremio de los Mareantes, which was built in the second half of the 12th century. It was a parish church in the 13th century and the Collegiate in the middle of the 15th. No one came home from the sea without visiting this church first.

In front of it we find the native house of Mr José Cornide of Baroque style. Otero Pedrayo considers it the most beautiful one in A Coruña.

Nowadays it has a three-nave ground, being the apse the oldest part.

Along St María Street we reach the Plazuela (Small Square) and Convent of St Bárbara. The convent was erected in the 15th century in the place where there was an hermitage dedicated to this saint. The present building dates from the 17th and 18th centuries, though. Today it is a Convent of the Order of St Clare and there is a relief in the façade that represents the Final Judgement. The convent, crosses, small square and houses form a beautiful and very interesting monumental whole.

The convent and Church of St Domingo are thought to have already existed in the late 13th century. The Town Council also met here in order to treat important matters in the 14th and 15th century.

It was destroyed in the late 16th century during Drake’s invasion and was rebuilt in the plot of the old Royal Mint -inside the City Walls- in the 17th having later rebuildings.

In the baroque church we find the Chapel of Virgen del Rosario, the patron saint of A Coruña. The Vote of the City is a solemn performance that has been celebrated here for 400 years. The tower is the highest in the old city.

We go back to the surroundings of the Church of Santiago. Next to the apse is the Plaza de la Harina (Flour Square) with the Fuente del Deseo (Desire Fountain).

We also find the Plaza de la Constitución, which is the scenery of many historical events in A Coruña. In this square we can see the building of the Capitanía General y Antigua Audiencia de Galicia from the 18th century. The royal shield is preserved in the façade.

The Convent of St Francisco may have been founded in the 18th century although there is no news of its church until the 15th. Carlos I joined his court here and is supposed to have bestowed powers to the cardinal Hadrian. Felipe II lived here. As it was outside the walls it was on fire during Drake’s blockade to prevent the enemy from visiting it. Nowadays, only a part of the façade is preserved. The bell-tower belongs now to the Church of the Orden Tercera (Third Order), which was built in the 18th century.

Before entering the garden of St Carlos, we approach to the so- called Puertas del Mar (Sea Doors). In the wall from the 14th century these doors are open. They date from the 16th and 17th centuries and face the bay spreading along the Parrote’s Walk. History entered through these doors in A Coruña during the centuries.

St Carlos is a bastion turned into a garden. In the centre there is a granite tomb situated between canons stuck on the ground.

Here are the remains of Sir John Moore, the English General who fought against the French in the Independence War. The 16th of January 1809 a great battle took place in Elviña. The General was deadly- injured that same day and his blood watered this damaged land.

Today St Carlos is a quiet place because, according to Otero Pedrayo, it is a place presided by death and poetry. Rosalía de Castro searched and found poetry in the tomb of John Moore.

From the balcony of St Carlos we find out that what Cunqueiro said turned out to be true:

"Desde cualquier lugar de A Coruña, se pueden ver los pies del viento brillar a lo largo del mar"

('Fromanywhere in A Coruña we can see the feet of the wind shine over the sea').

St Carlos and St Antón were essential spots to defend A Coruña. The fire between both of them made this access impregnable.

We go to St Antón to approach to the history of this city, modern and ancient at the same time. All the events that made a city step by step are kept inside.

It was an island long ago and there was a chapel devoted to St Antón. It was turned into a castle in the late 16th century. The old fortress is nowadays joined to the mainland and the history of A Coruña is kept inside.

The oldest times of A Coruña are reflected in the interior of the ground floor: daggers, halberds, spears, axes from the Bronze Age, maces, idols and arrows, which were found in the Copper-Age.

The treasure of Castro de Elviña, which consists of earthenware bowls, ‘torques’ and other objects is placed in the old lodgings of this castle. It belongs to the wide period of the eighth century b. C. until the Roman domination.

In the ground floor, there are also objects from the sixth century before Christ until Romanization. We are referring to excavations made in the hill forts Meirás and Elviña. It was the beginning of history.

Rome marked deeply the life of this land. There are many written references: altar stones and stone tablets which were found in the subsoil of the old city, Romanesque remains under the Church of Santiago or in the necropolis of the Calle Real and amphorae that were rescued from the bay. At that moment, A Coruña, called the old Brigantia, was already a port-city with a lighthouse lighting the unknown.

After Rome many other people like Visigoths turned up. All of them were searching for Finisterre.

The Middle Ages are reflected on the open patio of the Museum with sculptures, heraldic emblems, and

sarcophagus... The first shield known in A Coruña dates from the late 16th century. It is carved on stone and comes from the Puerta de la Torre de Arriba (Door of the Upper Tower).

The first structure of this fortress also dates from the 16th century whose tank was one of the strongest and biggest in Spain.

The group of rooms and objects on the top floor of the museum dates from the 17th to 19th centuries. We find here the traces of the religious beliefs (the Chapel of the Virgen del Rosario and vestry), the traces of the political ideas –on the ground floor- which recall the liberal politician Díaz Porlier, A Coruña and the sea, war battles, being the most important the battle of Elviña in the Independence War, or the quiet life of noblemen or bourgeoisie in these centuries.

From St Antón, we can see again the City of María Pita and Pardo Bazán, Murguía and María Casares, Picasso and Madariaga.

Cunqueiro said that A Coruña is made of light, stone and glass, sea and wind.

It is the result of a fight between man and elements, against the invader, against himself being favoured by life-strength. As for his triumph is concerned, here is the evidence.

 A Coruña, is life. The power of life stone-made and glass, light, sea and wind.