A Coruña

Flights to see a good friend who recently relocated to Spain cost myself and another friend 80p each plus tax on Ryanair. With tickets costing less that the price of offsetting our carbon footprint, how could we not go?

Flying into Santiago de Compostela, we hired a zippy little BMW that nearly killed us the following day whilst attempting a U-turn in order to photograph 4 cute old men hanging out by the roadside. From Santiago we drove north for 40 minutes or so to A Coruña.

The city was much bigger than expected, and a bit post WWII suburban outside of the old town. Inside the old town, A Coruña has the charm of so many European towns, complete with piazas and cathedrals and cobblestones. Unlike other towns, A Coruña is situated on a headland / peninsula, that means one is never more than a 10min walk to the beach or to the harbour on the opposite side.

Our weekend was spent enjoying the local tapas bars and later the diverse selection of crazy little nightclubs.

During the day we checked out some of the more grimey but authentic bars, eating tortillas, bowls of small roasted peppers and the local speciality that seemed to be some kind of small sea snails.

Post afternoon swim and beach siesta, we began our night on the town at a trendy, yet reasonably priced bar on Riego De Agua called La Barra Del Huerto*.

We then moved on to a string of nightclubs that became more and more of a blur as the night (early morning) wore on. Every place was high energy and tons of fun.

My favourite drinking spot of the trip was a recently opened, back-alley joint called Madam Sans Gans, with a low key and eclectic interior, and an equally as eclectic cliental. With a musical mix ranging from David Bowie to Arcade Fire, this bar has the best taste of all that we visited.

Being woken early the next morning by bagpipes in front of our apartment on Piazza Maria Pita was a cruel surprise. They seemed very out of place but I guess it has something to do with the Celtic links in the Basque country. Once the bagpipes subsided, somewhere very close to our apartment the explosions began. It later transpired that we had coincided our visit with the celebrations of the local patron saint. The explosions continued three times as long as any twenty-one gun salute and when they finally stopped a brass band came marching into Maria Pita. With out throbbing heads still full of last night’s excess, the three of us had to get out of the city.

And so we headed south down the Galecian coast, with the intent to make it to Fini Terre - the western most point of Continental Europe. After we finally got untangled from what seemed like the most illogical network of motorways, highways and suburban streets, and we saw the first lines of swell, it became apparent that we all wanted to go for a surf.

We headed to Razo Beach and by chance met a man who knew Alejandro, the owner of the local surf shop. Despite being a late Sunday afternoon, his surf shop being shut for the day and having to rus/h off to see his daughter’s school performance, Alejandro kindly set the three of us up with boards and wetsuits. We spent the remainder of the day in what seemed like perfectly glassy Atlantic waves that weren’t to demanding for our hung over bodies. A sea mist hung in the air that gave the late afternoon sun an amazing diffused quality. Life was good.