Falling Back 26 & 27. Visiting A Coruña

Now that I have classes all afternoon, my writing time has become cramped. Yesterday, I didn't have enough time in the morning, and when I finished classes at eight, I was mentally exhausted. All I wanted to do was sit and vegetate.

This morning my husband and I went to A Coruña to check something out. We hadn't been in the city since August of last year, when we went to see Patti Smith in concert at  Riazor beach. If this year had been normal, we probably would have gone to this August's concert, provided an interesting group had been booked.

A Coruña is a city that my daughter has described as grey. The truth is that, through the middle of its streets, it's much like any other northern Spanish city. The modern parts of Avilés and Gijón are similar, and I suppose so are others all the way to the French border at Irún, though I haven't visited any Basque city. Apartment blocks stretching up, creating shadowy streets, barely any balcony. Smartly outfitted shops next to closed up blind windows, and shuttered doors with old grafitti. Along most streets, there is nothing to make one want to return. 

Sometimes, though, there is a thoroughfare

that leads to the sea, and there, the Cantabrian Sea opens up in sparkling blue splendor. The old part of Coruña is on a peninsula jutting out into the sea. At its very tip is a lighthouse, the Torre de Hércules, the oldest working lighthouse in the world. Its origins date from the second century C.E., when the Romans under Trajan most likely rebuilt an exhisting lighthouse that was built earlier by Phoenicians. The present exterior dates from the last refurbishing, in the eighteenth century, which also added some meters to its height, making it the second highest lighthouse in Spain.

We drove up there when we finished our business, and walked around, though we didn't go inside (you can climb to the top if you've got good legs, and pay three euros). At its foot, we ate a picnic lunch of empanada, made with savory meat. Facing it, is the old Prisión Provincial, with its windows boarded up. The last prisoners were sent to the new provincial prison at Teixeiro just twenty years ago, and now the building lies, unused, unloved, and boarded up, facing the lighthouse and the coastal area where prisoners were led during the civil war for their paseo, the euphemism of the time for execution. 

There were many people about, and a family

of four trying to fly two kites in the windy fields above the seaside cliffs. Sailboats were bobbing in the distance, and a tanker was leaving port. It was a nice October day, punctuated by a splash of humor. My husband and I were reading the plaque above the exit from the tower, explaining who refurbished it in 1790. He said Charles IV, and I said Charles III. A disembodied voice from inside the doorway called out, "Both!" We all laughed. The guide (who was standing inside the door and had heard us) was right. At the top, it has four in Roman numerals, not IV, but IIII. He finished it, but his predecessor, Charles III, had begun the reform earlier. 

We soon drove back home after that. There were other things we had to do. Despite the uptick in infections, and the closing of the region of Madrid, there were a few tourists around. Everyone was masked. Many were dressed warmly, and I have no idea why. The temperature was a balmy 21ºC/69ºF, yet quite a few people were already wearing warm jackets. My husband was in a short-sleeved t-shirt, and I was wearing a long-sleeved one, and we weren't cold, not even in the wind blowing at the lighthouse, next to the sea. I think some people, when the first of October arrives, puts away their summer clothes and opens up the winter wardrobe. And then that's the way they keep it, no matter what the weather outside.  

Hopefully, the next time I visit will be once again in August, to attend a concert at the beach.

Life continues.