June 18, 2024 – Malpica de Bergantiños to Barrañan – 30 kms – Playa de Barrañan

June 19, 2024 – Barrañan to A Coruña – 17 kms – Hostal La Provinciana

June 20, 2024 – A Coruña – Hostal La Provinciana

June 21, 2024 – A Coruña – Hostal La Provinciana

June 22, 2024 – A Coruña to Madrid by train – Hostal Aresol

June 23, 2024 – Madrid – Hostal Aresol

We completed our walk / cycle from Budapest in A Coruña, in the far northwest of Spain.  We walked / cycled 2135 kms from Arles this year (my longest walk in a single trip!) and 4222 kms from Budapest.  While I would have happily continued walking for another three months, the Schengen Treaty and our cat both insist that we return home.  But before our flight we have had a few tourist days in A Coruña and Madrid.

A Coruña is an attractive and easy-going city occupying the end of a peninsula.  It has a major harbour on one side and a gorgeous arc of sand on the other.  And the sun came out on our second day in town.  We were so unaccustomed to it that we cowered and hid at first, but it can be quite pleasant.  Hundreds of locals felt the same and suddenly the previously empty beaches were teaming with sunbathers and beach aficionados.

A Coruña has a number of notable attractions, including the Tower of Hercules.  This was built as a lighthouse by the Romans in the first century AD, and sensitively restored in the 18th century.  It is the only lighthouse from antiquity that is still used as such, though the stone holding the oil and wick has been replaced by an electric light.  It has UNESCO designation.

We also visited the Aquarium Finisterrae, the aquarium at the end of the world, as well as the local fine arts museum.  In the attractive historical district we got the final stamp in our pilgrim credential at a well preserved 12th century Santiago church.

After three pleasant nights in A Coruña we rocketed down to Madrid on the high speed train.  We were once again reminded that Spain is somehow able to build an extraordinary network of rail and freeway links, with hundreds of tunnels and viaducts, and Canada largely can’t.  I would like to read some explanation for the economics that permit the Spanish to enjoy a higher level of public services than we observe in Canada, despite a lower GDP per capita.  I am not alone in my curiosity, as a columnist for the Globe & Mail who had been travelling in Spain asked the same question a month ago when he returned to the shoddy and ill-maintained infrastructure in Toronto.

We are staying a few metres from the Puerta del Sol in Madrid, ground zero for tourism.  After almost two months spent largely in small towns in Spain it was unsettling to suddenly be surrounded by tourists and the local amenities catering to it.  Madrid is a lot more touristed, and more expensive, than it used to be, but it is still a pleasant place to visit.  We spent a few hours in one of our favourite museums, the Thyssen, which has an excellent general collection spanning from the 14th century to the present.  We also visited for the first time the house museum of the post-impressionist painter Joaquin Sorolla.  Highly recommended.