Yes, dear reader I am out of Norway finally - usually I love sailing trough Baltic & Scandinavian countries but this time it went on forever and everybody around here had enough of fjords. After a while they all started to look the same. So I took a deep breath, clenched my teeth, went trough another disembarkation/embarkation process (previous passengers out, new passengers in) and bravely faced another sea, that appropriately changed color immediately as we left North. This is also the end of the tunnel for me as I am counting days until my vacation, however I do have some interesting places along the way and some of them I see for the very first time.
A Coruña is town on Atlantic coast of Spain - most of our passengers decided to visit famous Santiago del Compostela, which used to be center of medieval pilgrimage route but since I know it & been there already, this time I had something else in mind: to walk across the town and see the oldest lighthouse in the world. First - I slept. Because we had four incredibly difficult and busy days behind us, with constant standing and really serious working so I needed some well deserved rest. Than just as I walked out, I got involved in bus accident where one of our passengers was injured so I recognized her, helped with translation (ambulance, police, bus driver, insurance), run back to the ship to get some help and to make sure lady will not be left out in Spain if the ship sails away and than finally I could continue to see the darn lighthouse.
Which turned out to be pretty impressive: Tower of Hercules was built in ancient Roman times (1st century AD?) probably on order of emperor Trajan and it stands on top of a cliff overlooking coast towards north. Originally it was somewhat lower but renovation in 1788 added the gothic top - its quite amazing that Roman structure is still in use, there is original inscription bearing the name of architect who designed it (Caio Sevio Lupo from Coimbra, which today is Portugal) and rooms still show the typical features of Roman construction. You can't help but to gape in awe towards the tower, its really magnificent. Down bellow, before the paved road that leads to it, there is a sculpture of a mythical Celtic king Breogán who founded a city Brigantia - this is where Celts originally ruled before some of their princely descendants moved towards Ireland and the story goes that distant island of Ireland was spotted from this point, inspiring sailors to discover the new world there. Who knew? I would never connect Spain and Ireland but maybe this is why we have so many dark-haired & blue-eyed Irishmen today, Celts turned out to be mixture of locals and Spanish adventurers.
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