A New Day is Dawning in La Coruña, Spain……………..

The tugs come to assist us into Port………

Is that a swimming pool? Uh, yeah!

Is the rain coming in? The view from the ship is lovely, but we need to get on with it……..

Out on the road we go!

To see very orange street lights…… each one has a different little picture on them, but I am too far away to see what they say!

And singles too!

Let’s go this way…….around a new construction site.

My, who is he, you ask? The story goes like this………

Breogán is a character from the medieval Christian history of Ireland. The Gaels wandered the earth for 440 years until they sailed to Iberia. Breogán founded a city he called Brigantia and built a great tower, a place to watch out over the water.  On a clear winter’s evening, his son, Íth, was gazing out in all four directions and thought he saw a solitary island sitting in a mist. He and his nine brothers set out to find the island, but were attacked by a local group of nobleman and Íth was killed. His body was returned to Brigantia and his family set out for revenge. They found the killers and went on to the island, taking it from the Irish pagan gods, and called it Ireland, settling there for good.  Now this makes a nice story, and is considered myth, however a genetic study conducted in 2006 at Oxford University concluded that the majority of people in the British Isles are descended from neolithic farmers coming from the coastal northern regions of Spain. This also showed up in my DNA study and I wondered how in the world I had any Spanish ancestry! So I must be related to Breogán!

The Tower of Hercules (in the background) is 180 feet tall and overlooks the North Atlantic coast of Spain. The structure was built in the 2nd century and renovated in 1791. It is the oldest Roman lighthouse in use today.

Through the millennia many mythical stories of the lighthouse’s origin have been told. According to a myth that blends Celtic and Greco-Roman elements, the hero, Hercules, slew the giant tyrant, Geryon, after three days and three nights of continuous battle. Hercules then, in a Celtic gesture, buried the head of Geryon with his weapons and ordered that a city be built on the site. The lighthouse atop a  skull and crossbones represents the buried head of Hercules’ slain enemy and appears in the coat-of-arms of the city of La Coruña.

And as I stated……..

This legend lives along with what we know of Breogán, confirmed in the 11th-century Irish compilation from the “Book of Invasions.”  It says, King Breogán, the founding father of the Galician Celtic nation, constructed a massive tower of such a grand height that his sons could see a distant green shore from it’s top. The glimpse of that distant green land lured them to sail north to Ireland. According to the legend, Breogán’s descendants stayed in Ireland and are the Celtic ancestors of the current Irish people.  A colossal statue of Breogán has been erected near the Tower of Hercules.  La Coruña has featured both…….. and is recognized as a World Unesco site.  

 

Here lies the story of Breogán………so we don’t forget.

And here is a close-up of the Tower of Hercules.

And we pass by the octopus…….. a testament to the octopus served in the restaurants here……….

This monument, created by Galician sculptor, Ramon Conde, guards the base of the path leading to the Tower of Hercules. It is just one of many ‘fat” pieces featured around the world.

…….This is also  why I exercise!

The wind is picking up and the clouds are rolling in…..time to return to the ship!

We’re losing our views! We’re not going to see Ireland today!

I hope you have enjoyed our quick trip around the coastline. Next we will visit the city of La Coruña! See you there!