LA CORUÑA

This year the Tower of Hercules at the entry of La Coruña's port has been added to the acquis of UNESCO'S World Heritage. It is a high lighthouse, built initially by the Romans.
This makes me remember the first trip I paid with my money: while studying economy at ISCEF, Lisbon, I gave some lessons at the Oficinas de S. José school, were I had earlier been a pupil of the primary classes. I took a self-oriented tour of Galicia, using trains and buses. From Lisbon I had the first night at my grand-parents home, in Aveiro and then proceeded to Pontevedra, with a change of train in Porto; sign of evolution and accrued feelings of peace, no more visas were needed for Spain, like in 1954. Up north I went to Santiago de Compostela with its famous cathedral (later a WH site), the highlight of my week, as you may well guess, but in-between I took a stop in Padrón to visit the house and monument of Rosalía de Castro, a galician writer. La Coruña was the northern most nightstop, which surely included walking till the Tower of Hercules, a vintage point for the town and its bay. Yet, I still moved more to the north, by taking a ferry till El Ferrol, on the opposite side of the complex system of bays in the region. For the return I choose Galicia's interior, with nightstops at Lugo and its roman walls (later another WH site) and Ourense. I took a bus to Puente Barjas, as called at the time, today Ponte Barxas, as Galician language took its rights, and then it was walking for around one kilometer to the border; after the border, more walking to São Gregório, a bus to Melgaço and finnaly the portuguese train. This is how and where I crossed a border on foot for the first time. God permitting, I suppose I still have some more to do.