May 15

The apartment buildings along the inner harbor of A Coruna are faced completely with wooden window frames standing off the building about two feet. They collect the morning sun and heat, and from the outside look almost as if the structures are draped in lace. The sun finally made an appearance this morning just in time for coffee by the harbor and a short tour of the castle before catching a bus to Muxia. The ride was along the northwest coast of Galicia before turning south to Muxia, a fishing village on the Atlantic. The bus passed through a series of small towns on the coast, each showing their historically strategic importance with a castle and defensive structures. Muxia, like A Caruna on a smaller scale, is a long narrow town filling a peninsula. Instead of the tower of Hercules, it has a small lighthouse and a large church at the point, a place where the seas crash hard on worn, rounded rocks–a slurry of white foam and constant roar.

T. Hugh Crawford