Tower of Hercules
The Tower of Hercules is a lighthouse of Roman origin that is used as such until today. The Romans constructed the
Farum Brigantium at the end of the 1st century or beginning of the 2nd. Its use was not continuous, during the Middle Ages it fell into disrepair. The lighthouse became of interest again during the 15th century, when La Coruña became an important port.
Major reconstruction work was done in the 18th century. Its current form is in the neo-classical style.
The current structure is 55 metres tall, while the Roman core is 34 metres. It stands on Eiras peninsula to guard Galician coastline at the North Atlantic coast of Spain.
Visit August 2009
As I’m the first one to review this 2009 addition to the List, let’s start with the practical details. The Tower is located at the tip of a peninsula in the north of the city of La Coruña (that’s A Coruña in Galician). It is well signposted from there too. Although it’s only a couple of kilometres from the city centre, I’d recommend not to walk from there (quite boring) but go to the site directly. There’s a huge parking lot on the peninsula, but not really anything else besides toilets and an ice cream stall. Hundreds of other visitors where present when I visited the site on a Tuesday in August. It was already a popular destination before it became a WHS (120,000 visitors in 2006), and I guess now these numbers will become even higher.
The Tower / Lighthouse can be climbed all to the top. Entrance costs 2.5 EUR. I didn’t really want to go up in my current condition, but buying the ticket is the only way to see some of the interior. Fortunately there are several points at which you can turn around or exit. The climb starts at the base, where the Roman foundations can be seen. The tower is called a “Roman Lighthouse”, but most of what you see dates from the 18th century. The Roman lighthouse (or what’s left of that) is “inside” the bigger current lighthouse (like a mathruska doll). ICOMOS applauded its “functional integrity” more than its Roman features – it was and still is a lighthouse.
The stairs are easy to walk on and there are ample places to rest. I turned around about half way.
Next to the lighthouse is a stone building that apparently houses the ex-voto of its construction. I wondered what it was for, but couldn’t open my notes due to the strong winds blowing at the site!
When the lighthouse was inscribed this year, the thing that amazed me the most was that a nearby sculpture park, rock carvings and a muslim cemetery were included too. The only reason I can think of is that they wanted to protect the entire peninsula as core zone. So that way some other structures came in too. However, there’s also a large sports complex at the same location which they conveniently declared as being in the buffer zone.
It’s pleasant enough to walk on the peninsula and let the wind and the sun touch you. Some of the sculptures and the muslim cemetery are located quite far from the rest, behind the sports center. I didn’t go there. A complete visit of the peninsula probably takes about 2 hours. And you can bring your own picknick lunch as there are several nice spots to sit and watch the sea and the ships passing by.
More photos can be found in the Picture Gallery
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