Tower of Hercules

A statue greets visitors to the Tower of Hercules, but the statue is not the Greek or Roman hero. No, it is instead a Celtic king, a legend named Breogán, from a foreign land far from Galicia in northwest Spain. According to stories, after wandering the earth, the king settles in Iberia and and builds a city named Brigantia and a tower from which he espies the emerald shores of Ireland. Breogán may not have ever existed, but the Galicians have Celtic ties to Hibernia in their history, as has been confirmed by DNA testing linking the Irish with the north coast of Spain. And that tower that made its way into the stories? It may very well be the Tower of Hercules.

I visited the Tower of Hercules on a delightfully sunny day in May 2019. The tower stands on a hill at the end of a peninsula on the north side of A Coruña, and was an easy destination to aim for as I drove along the coast. The parking lot at the end of the peninsula was rather convenient, with the ticket office, complete with a small museum, nearby. I visited on a weekday in the summer, and was able to procure a ticket with the next earliest entry time; I'm not sure if it is busier on weekends, but I was glad to not have a long wait. Even if I did have to wait, though, the peninsula had plenty of sculptures and works of …

Probably our shortest World Heritage site visit so far, even shorter than the plague column in Olomouc! The tower itself is very impressive, though most of what you can see isn't the original Roman construction. We had hoped to climb the lighthouse and have a nice view back across to La Coruna and the harbour, but as you'll see in the video below it was unbelievably windy and the tower was closed! All there was for it was to walk around the tower a couple of times, admire it from each direction, and then depart.

I visited this WHS in May 2016. The Tower of Hercules is one of the highlights of Galicia and A Coruna's landmark. Yet, its geographic position being rather remote is such that it does not attract so many foreign tourists. In fact there are no bars, restaurants, souvenir shops or hotels in the immediate vicinity of the tower. The surrounding sculpture park (containing also minor petroglyphs) is also inscribed, most probably as a huge buffer zone to protect the site from urban sprawl. The natural setting is indeed beautiful with a lovely sandy beach, rocky cliffs and birdwatching trails. I was quite lucky as I visited on a lovely sunny day with only a cool pleasant breeze. The walk towards the tower does NOT offer the best views. Instead if you visit in the afternoon, head left from the small visitor centre away from the tower and you'll enjoy magnificent panoramic views of the tower, the sandy beach and the rocky cliffs. I visited on a Monday so the entrance to the tower was free. The Roman foundations can be viewed as soon as you enter the tower. The stairs are quite wide and sturdy so I'd really recommend the extra effort. The ventilation is excellent too. The view from the top is quite something and you'll be able to appreciate why the sculpture park was added (just look at the urban sprawl of A Coruna and then compare it to the beautiful natural setting surrounding the tower!). I visited …

An early finish to my Camino gave me a day spare to venture north to A Coruña and visit the windiest WHS so far.

The lighthouse is quite impressive and can be seen from a fair distance away back on the Western beach in A Coruña. It is a very fine looking tower, but it is not really that 'Roman' and has not even been continually used as Lighthouse for the entirety of its life. However there are some Roman remains buried underneath it and I got a view of these when I went inside. They were about as interesting as a selection of dimly lit rocks can be. There were repairs going on to the Tower so I wasn't able to climb it. I then headed on out to see the surrounding additions to the inscription on the peninsula. It was a little bit of a way to get to the furthest points so I took the opportunity to hire a Segway (second time at a WHS this year) and head of to the extremities. This proved to be a very enjoyable way of getting to see some of the abstract sculptures and the small Muslim cemetery. Quite what these have to do with the lighthouse I am not sure, however it does mean that this rather lovely part of the coastline is left free of development, and I found it an exceptionally rewarding place to be blown around by the increasingly strong winds.

If you ever really want …

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 were 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. The 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 interiors. 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 …