In Riazor we find a very important sports complex. Our final goal will be the historical city, the traces of the passage of time.


We follow modern roads that lead us to the centre of the city or the most important beaches in A Coruña: Riazor and Orzán. In summer thousands of people enjoy the sun and the sea in an urban environment that offers comforts and rest.
In A Coruña there are very modern business areas to draw people’s attention and traditional streets like St Andrés, Rúa Nueva and gastronomic streets par excellence like Olmos, also called The Star.


There are beautiful places to go for a walk just as Los Cantones or the business area called El Obelisco. Here was the area called La Pescadería where inhabitants of A Coruña fought against the English army in 1589 to defend their city.
In front of Los Cantones we can see La Rosaleda, Méndez Núñez Gardens (with stone and bronze sculptures of illustrious Galician people), the wonderful building of La Terraza, which today is a modern communication centre and the newspaper kiosk Alfonso, which today is an art gallery under the authority of the Town Hall of A Coruña.
More than 100 years later, the voice of the famous Galician writer Curros Enríquez still sounds fresh and lively in honour of this city:

Ouh, meiga cibdá da Cruña,
cibdá que por sobre os mares
érgue-la cabeza altiva,
cal onte nas túas murallas
o brazo de María Pita:

¿Qué tés nese teu recinto
qué tés prós que te visitan
que coñecerte non poden
sin que deixarte non sintan?.
As an intermediate step between present and past we find the Galleries of A Coruña.

Although the famous writer Mrs Emilia Pardo Bazán thought of them as cages and similar to pantheons, they were called "Quitapesares" in A Coruña. For the writer Torrente Ballester they were like a cure for the absence and he needed watch them once a year at least. They were worth the name "The Glass City" (La Ciudad de Cristal) for A Coruña.

They date from the early 19th century and synthesized the artisan work of the carpenters who made ships with the work of the new glass industry, which was born in Orzán by that time.

They have a practical value as they regulate the temperature letting the sun in and acting as a shock-absorbing chamber against the rigors of winter. They have also an exceptional aesthetic value and are a real symbol in A Coruña.
We are almost in the old city and the urban geometry is perfect in María Pita Square (Plaza de María Pita). In three sides of this square the houses -each of them on three arches- show balconies and galleries in an upward progression.
In this square we can find the Palacio Municipal, which dates from the beginning of the present century. The most important events of the history and legend of the city are performed in the assembly hall of this palace.
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