Tag Archives: History

Day 3 – Lugo again: Victor Lugorum

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Tuesday 30 April 2024 – We got a lot more touristing done today than I had expected given the dire (or at least rainy) weather forecast by Accuweather. And, in truth, the prospects at the start of the day weren’t particularly appealing.

It seemed that seeking indoor touristing would be the way to go for the day, so we set out for the cathedral, through the rain.

En route, we stopped in at the central pharmacy, which was well-decorated in an art nouveau kind of way,

You can only really see the stained glass in this door from inside the shop, where it appears reversed. So I have flipped it left-to-right

and were reminded that Lugo is actually on various of the Camino de Santiago routes – the Primitivo and XIX.

I’m grumpy about visiting the cathedral. They charge €7.50 for entry and then won’t let you take photos. My feeling is that you can do one or the other. So I sneaked a couple of illicit photos anyway, yah boo, in both cathedral and cloisters.

There’s some lovely detail in the cloisters and some fine stained glass in the cathedral itself.

After this peremptory visit to the cathedral, we walked around in dampness that was gradually escalating from slight drizzle to proper rain, taking in some other nice corners of the city.

but the dampness became too oppressive, so we scurried off to the Café del Centro, where we’d noticed hot chocolate and churros advertised. And very nice they were too; we were amused to note that the café seemed to regard this as a normal breakfast.

The rain appeared to be easing as we left the café, so, rather than go back and skulk in our hotel room, we decided to take a walk out of the old city to a Roman bridge across the river, passing a couple of installations in the main square that we hadn’t really taken note of before

and passing some nice scenes as we went.

Delightfully, as we got to the river, the sun came out,

and showed the 7-arch Roman bridge off to its best advantage.

The walk to the river is quite steeply downhill, which meant that we got some practice for our forthcoming hiking as we worked our way back up to the city, up to and through the Parque Rosalía de Castro. This is named after a Galician poet and novelist, considered one of the most important figures of 19th-century Spanish literature and modern lyricism. Widely regarded as the greatest Galician cultural icon, she was a leading figure in the emergence of the literary Galician language. The route also involved climbing some 180 steps and 100 metres vertical, so constituted a nice preparatory workout for the day after tomorrow, which is when we take our first steps on the Camino Finisterre.

By this stage we felt we’d earned some lunch, so once again visited the Terrazza restaurant at our hotel. Although we weren’t much later than yesterday, the restaurant was very quiet, with only a couple of other tables occupied; a great contrast with yesterday’s buzz.  The food was just as good, though.

Having (slightly over-) indulged ourselves, we noted that the rain which had come on just as we arrived at the hotel had now eased, and so we went off for a post-prandial constitution in search of some final sights to take in. There were still a couple of churches to be visited, after all.

Having passed the “Monumento do Bimilenario”, the city’s nod to Y2K

(dubbed “The Millennium Falcon”, by Jane), our first stop was the church of the Convento de San Domingos, a very tranquil place.

I noticed that it featured an organ with horizontal pipes,

which appears to be A Thing in these parts – we’d noticed similar setups in the cathedrals of Burgos and León.

The other was the church of San Pedro,

which has some fine stained glass.

There remained but one other Thing To See, which is something we’d completely missed in our walks around because the last thing it looks like is a site of significant historic interest.

It is actually the Museo Universitario A Domus do Mitreo. “Domus”, as anyone old enough to have studied Latin at school knows, means “house”*, and this unlikely-looking building houses (sorry) a really interesting site – the remains of what must have once been a palatial residence that was also a Mithraeum, a temple dedicated to the cult of Mithras, a Roman mystery religion. It’s a very extensive site


with great archeological significance for the city. The site of the domus is important to the city, since it has allowed the documentation of archaeological remains from the entire history of Lugo, starting at the moment of its foundation, around 27BC, until the 20th century. The site is very well laid out with lots of detailed information on info boards and in videos and enabling one to get really very close to the original Roman stonework. Interestingly, when The Powers That Be of the time decided that the city needed a wall, they just went ahead and built it straight through one end of the place.

And that was about it for our wandering around Lugo – a very pleasant city with a significant Roman history. The morrow involves departing for Santiago de Compostela and (after an overnight stop to draw breath) the start in earnest of our proper peregrination to the coast. It will be interesting for us to find out how we get on with some serious walking; I hope it might also be interesting for you to come back to these pages to see how things went.

 

* Domus was also the name of a now-defunct chain of (originally co-operative-run) department stores in Sweden. This fact may be of use in some bizarre set of circumstances, such as when writing a blog about a Roman city in Spain.

Day 2 – Lugo. Not at all lugobrious.

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Monday 29 April 2024 – We squeezed rather more into the day than had been our original plan, because today the sun was shining but the weather forecast for the coming days was gloomy at best, dire at worst. We had originally planned just to potter over to Lugo via an archaeological site today, and leave the morrow for wandering around Lugo itself. But time permitted us to do both in the one day, and the good weather encouraged us to adopt that as plan A. The result was a good day – we even had time for another decent and copious lunch.

First challenge, though, was to get the panzer tank beemer out of the underground car park at the hotel, which we managed without incident by dint of Jane watching closely from outside the car as I negotiated exit barriers. It’s a lovely car in many respects, and probably not actually that much larger than my old Citroën. But it feels fucking huge!

Anyhoo….

Jane had, as ever, spotted a potentially interesting site to visit as we made our way to Lugo. I tried putting the name Viladonga into our TomTom satnav, and it was not at all impressed. But Google Maps came to the rescue and so we found ourselves at Castro Viladonga, the site of a mainly Roman hill fort, where there’s a rather nicely laid-out and totally free museum beside the remains of the castro itself. The museum has a model of what it’s imagined the place looked like in its day.

and, particularly given the lovely weather, this cried out to me that I needed to get the drone up and over the site.

Whilst I was busy dealing with the drone, Jane was taking photos of the site itself, which has some quite remarkable stonework still visible.

There’s a lot of detail visible for those who want to dive into it.  For example, as you enter the site, there’s a stone in the middle of the path.

The groove in it indicates that at one stage a gate would lodge in place there, and one can see at the sides the ridges which would support the gate.  Looking at the stone from further away

shows that there would be a second gate, for added security. The museum also has several interesting artefacts, including fragments that show that glass was being blown during the time of the greatest occupation of the encampment (2nd – 5th Century AD).  They also had a booth with a cute video simulation of some of the activities that would be daily tasks of the time.

All in all, it was a pleasant diversion from the journey to Lugo and we’re glad we took the time to nose around it. There was a tiny treat for us as we drove off the motorway to reach it – a stork’s nest with a stork on it! Sadly, traffic meant we couldn’t stop without causing an unacceptable amount of tutting from the drivers behind us, but it was lovely to see. On the way back from the Castro, we did manage to stop, and Jane got a snap of the three chicks that were in the nest.

With luck, we’ll see more of these during our time in Galicia. We saw plenty of nests here last autumn, but never ones with actual occupants.

Lugo is a town best known for its Roman Walls, which was the main reason for us to visit, obvs. Our hotel is the Hotel Méndez Núñez. Now, this is the second time we’ve come across the name, as, you’ll of course remember, there was a park of this name in A Coruña. It turns out that Castro Méndez Núñez was a Galician who fought Filipino pirates, won a war, scared and intimidated the British and American navies and was the first to sail around the world in command of a battleship. Who knew, eh?

Anyway, we arrived with a determination to exploit the day’s nice weather to walk the Roman walls which have made Lugo world famous in Spain. First , though, we had to wrestle the tank beemer through one of the Roman (i.e. chariot-sized, rather than SUV-sized) gates and along a typically Roman Old Town set of narrow streets to find the recommended car park somewhere near our hotel. Remarkably, in another of the day’s small and somewhat unexpected treats, not only did we manage to get into the Anxel Fole car park with the paintwork intact, but there was also a space big enough for it there. What larks!

We were further delighted to note that we had time to eat lunch and use the walls as a post-prandial constitutional, since it was only about 2pm when we got to Lugo. Conveniently, the hotel features a restaurant and the receptionist told us that it would be open for lunch until about 3pm.  So we headed with alacrity to the 6th floor terrace, where it looked like we might have a desultory hotel lunch alongside the other couple who were there.  We ordered food and noted that after a while a few groups came in. And then a few more.

By about 3.30pm, the place was practically full, so our rush to get there was, after all, not necesary. It did, though, enable us to have a decent and copious lunch whilst still having plenty of time to walk the walls.

The walls that I’ve been banging on about are ancient Roman defensive walls stretching a couple of kilometres and completely surrounding the Old Town – I think it’s the only city which has an intact set of completely surrounding walls; York runs it a close second, but there are a few gaps there. The Lugo walls were built in the third century AD to defend the ancient Roman town of Lucus Augusti. The fortifications were declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2000. Deservedly, they’re a popular tourist attraction.  Here are some photos from our walk round them.

It looks to us as though the walls have had some restoration work done on them, even if we can’t immediately find verification one way or the other.  They’re just somehow in suspiciously good nick for construction that old.  Sure, the Romans knew how to build stuff, but still….anyway, they’re wonderful to behold, and the city obviously takes great care of them.

Jane had a quick chat with these guys and, yes, it’s a year-round task to keep the walls looking good.

The feeling we’d got from various sources was that there wasn’t much else to see in Lugo apart from the walls. On the basis of our short stroll around today, I think we’d beg to differ; it’s a charming place

This chap was outside the place we stopped at for a well-deserved coffee after walking the walls

and we haven’t explored the cathedral or other churches yet – we’ll leave that for the morrow. There’s even a statue of the chap who lent his name to our car park.

Anxel Fole was a writer, well-known in Galicia, since he wrote books, poems and stories in the Galician language.

As the evening drew to a close, we wrung the last photographic drops out of the city, as it’s quite attractive lit up at night.

First prize for photogenicity has to go to this view of the back of the cathedral, though.

We really enjoyed the day and being able to take advantage of the good weather. Tomorrow – who knows? If it rains, perhaps we can find some indoor places to explore.  Come back soon and find out whether we were lucky or not, eh?

Day 1 – A Coruña

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Sunday 28 April 2024 – We arrived here in A Coruña yesterday, after a largely unremarkable journey. Only a couple of things were noteworthy: firstly that the Vueling flight from Gatwick to Santiago both pushed back and landed some 10 minutes early; and secondly, the hire car.  I had booked a small saloon (Seat Leon or similar) and asked for an automatic gearbox, a strong preference for me, since driving on the wrong side of the road is bad enough without having to worry about where the flaming gear stick is all the time.  It turned out that the only automatic car they had was

a BMW X5, which is much more modern and sophisticated than anything I have ever driven before (on either side of the road).  It’s also much larger; I’ve driven full-sized Ford Transit vans, and this felt bigger than one of those. It took several minutes even to work out how to engage forward gear but I gradually got the hang of it without actually crashing into anything, and we made it from Santiago airport to our hotel, the Melia Maria Pita, without any incident other than an unexpectedly closed road which we had to navigate around. Thank heavens for satnavs, that’s what I say. Thank heavens also for a wife who’s armed with Google Maps for when the satnav traduces the driver.

It’s a nice hotel and we get a splendid view across the bay.

Remember the hotel name, by the way; I’ll come back to that later.

We have just the one full day here in A Coruña, so we went for a walk. Obviously.  Jane did her usual great job of looking for items of interest, because if you believe the internet you’ll form the impression that there’s only one thing worth seeing here.  We did see it, of course, but Jane had unearthed a route which passed all sorts of striking scenes.

A significant chunk of A Coruña is a headland, somewhat appropriately named since it sits atop a neck, and it was a very pleasant walk to go around the perimeter.

Before crossing the neck, we walked along the prom

(tiddley om-pom-pom) which is allegedly the longest promenade in Europe.  It certainly winds its way a long way beside the sea side (beside the sea), where they appear to have shipped in a load of spare sand, in case the beach runs out.

Crossing the neck took us by some lovely architectural flourishes,

The dove is by Picasso, who lived in A Coruña as a child (1891-95)

through the Gardens of Méndez Núñez

past the Kiosko Alfonso with its decorative windows

and “La Terraza”, once a leisure centre, now the headquarters of the broadcaster RNE Galicia, which is a very ritzy building,

and into the Plaza Maria Pita (remember the name?), with its impressive local council HQ.

Maria Pita is a good example of nominative determinism, as she was, at least as far as Sir Francis Drake was concerned, a Pain In The Arse (PITA). She was a heroine in the defense of A Coruña against the English Armada attack upon the Spanish mainland in 1589. It’s worth noting that although Drake did a number on the Spanish Armada in 1598, he wasn’t always successful in his military exploits, as well as being, basically, a pirate. Anyway, there is a statue of Maria Pita in the square, obvs,

but what was also engaging was what the square was being used for – there was a lot of noise and bustling activity.


A Zumba session, and lots of kids’ sports made for a great atmosphere in the square – so energising, in fact, that we immediately had to go and have a coffee.

Also in the area is the church of St. George,

so we had to visit that, of course.

Also nearby is a very quirky square, called the Plaza Humor.

Having crossed the neck via these engaging sights, we then embarked on the Paseo Maritimo, which could very well count itself as the start of that long promenade I mentioned earlier. Whatever, there’s a path which winds right around this headland, across the bay where our hotel is, over to the other side and round where Monte de San Pedro overlooks the city. It’s a very well-designed path

with separate walking, running and cycling tracks and very distinctive lampposts.

It passes evidence of the once-fortified state of the city,

including the Castelo de Santo Anton.

Not all the buildings are old, though. The Port Authority building is strikingly modern

and rather cleverly designed, since, as you walk round the Paseo Maritimo and look back, you see varying reflections of the city.

The Paseo Maritimo also leads past a cemetery, which is catnip to Jane, so we went and had a look around.

The Paseo winds its way past a very attractive little beach, the Playa de San Amaro,

which features an interestingly decorated restaurant.

By this stage, we were approaching the top of the headland, and various strange-looking items could be seen.  As we neared them, they resolved themselves into: Monumento aos Fusilados, which has the appearance from a distance of a henge,

and, in a contrasting nomenclature, the Menhirs for Peace, a set of standing stones.

As you can see, the stones have openings through them, and it is, of course, a great game to use these as frames for futher photos.

and one of these openings frames the One Thing that the internet thinks that A Coruña has to offer the visitor.

The Tower of Hercules, the oldest known extant Roman lighthouse, and now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.


As you can see, I whizzed the drone up to get some footage, and in doing so discovered a couple of things: firstly, the best time to do this would have been in the morning so you can have the light behind a shot looking from the tower to the city; and secondly that I’d pillaged the drone’s memory card to use in another camera – which I didn’t have with me. Fortunately, the thing has some internal memory which was sufficient for this short clip, so carrying it all that way wasn’t in vain. But still – rapped knuckles for me for not checking it over before we set out.

The Tower is very photogenic

and also very useful as a secondary subject in photos of other things, such as the menhirs and this installation called “A Cup of Sunshine”.

The relief flooding through me that I had at least some footage of the tower almost immediately gave way to the realisation that it was time for one of our signature Late Lunches. Jane had picked out a couple of likely restaurants and so we headed off to find them (thanks again, Google Maps, the eSim capabiiity of modern phones and my brother for suggesting an eSim as a way of getting data cheaply whilst in The Foreign).

En route, we passed a building that would once have been magnificent, but which was now clearly disused;

the old prison.

We discovered quite swiftly that 3pm on a sunny Sunday was not the best time to rock up to a restaurant in A Coruña without a reservation. But the nice people at La Maritima managed to squeeze us in and so we got a decent and copious lunch there, after which we tottered back the couple of hundred yards to our hotel. Even that short distance was not devoid of photographic interest; it passes a big mural of Neptune and Hercules,

a rather oddly-shaped statue called Escultura soldado Botero (Botero being the name of the sculptor, who is known for the exaggerated proportions he gives to his subjects)

and, in the rocks below our hotel, a statue of the mermaid with the big boobies*.

So, for a place with supposedly only one point of interest, A Coruña had shown itself to be a charming place full of interesting sights, scenes and vignettes.  We’d had a great day wandering round, and we’re glad that we added it into our Camino itinerary.

Tomorrow sees us departing for another noted town in Galicia, Lugo; Jane has also spotted a couple of things we should investigate on the way there.  I’ll report back on it in due course, so stay tuned to these pages to find out what we got up to,

 

* This will only mean something to anyone who ever watched ‘Allo ‘Allo!