I Wanna Be Where The People Aren’t: Finding Some Calm On The Crowded Disney Dream

King Panda 77

Thank you sir. You were an inspiration.
Premium Member
Was that still in the port area? We must have missed those because we were dropped off right by the exit gates
We parked here.
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Piglet_the_brave

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Thursday 29th August: A Coruña (cont)


Our destination for the day was the Tower of Hercules lighthouse. This is the oldest known Roman lighthouse still in existence and a UNESCO World Heritage site. I originally booked an excursion through Disney to visit the lighthouse and take a walking tour through the old town as I was a bit apprehensive about being in a strange city with just me and the girls. But as I did some research I realised that it seemed pretty easy to walk around and was just over 1.5 miles from the port. Also the cost of the excursion was just over $300 for the three of us and entry to the lighthouse grounds was free with a cost of just over €3 per person to go inside. So I cancelled the excursion and we set out on our own.

Immediately outside the port area was a busy road that we had to cross, and the smell of fumes was very strong. Straight across from this we entered a lovely garden area full of statues and flowers and the scent of roses quickly replaced that of petrol fumes. It was still quite early, there were just a few locals walking dogs, and it was very peaceful.

Some photos from the gardens.

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And a statue of John Lennon, not sure why, I couldn’t find anything connecting him to the city.

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I’d planned out a route beforehand, and because I have a terrible sense of direction, downloaded it to my watch so I would have turn by turn navigation to our destination.

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Piglet_the_brave

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Thursday 29th August: A Coruña (cont)

We made our way through the narrow city streets. A lot of streets had no obvious pavements to walk on, and cars, bikes and pedestrians mingled together.

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Our route took us through the Plaza de Maria Pita, with the city hall on one side, bars and cafes on the others and a statue of Maria Pita in the middle. She is a local heroine who helped defend the city against the English Armada attack in 1589.


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Most of the cafés had chairs piled up outside, it was still quite early, but I imagine it would be bustling later on.

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Piglet_the_brave

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Thursday 29th August: A Coruña (cont)


We continued our walk through the streets

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I did make one slightly wrong turn but quickly realised and corrected myself.

I got a bit frustrated with this group of people, they were so slow. Luckily they turned off down another street.

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We thought these might be some old city walls.

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And we arrived at the Paseo Marítimo, a promenade which would take us to the lighthouse.

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Piglet_the_brave

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Thursday 29th August: A Coruña (cont)


It was another cooler, overcast day, just about warm enough for shorts while walking along. Luckily it didn’t rain because the one thing I had forgotten to take on the cruise was waterproofs.

We only walked a small part of the Paseo Marítimo, which is about 9km long and one of the longest seafront promenades in Europe. It was lovely and quiet along there, it looked mostly a few locals out for some morning exercise.

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As a runner, I really liked that there was a separate running lane.

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The lampposts were all decorated differently and there was some art along the way.

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Some views out to sea.

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We passed a beach were it looked like a volleyball game was being played.

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Piglet_the_brave

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Thursday 29th August: A Coruña (cont)

(I’m going to try to get through the rest of this quite quickly so that I can write about the transatlantic cruise)

We could see the tower as we walked along the promenade

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Once we got to the tower the girls decided that they didn’t want to walk up all the steps inside so we just wandered around the grounds.

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The grounds included a sculpture garden, I liked the Irish connection of this one as we have an Irish surname.

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Some more wandering

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Piglet_the_brave

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Thursday 29th August: A Coruña (cont)


We took a different route back to the ship and passed some artwork along the way

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Lexi wanted to walk along a beach, luckily everyone was fully clothed on the beaches we passed.

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I took this photo of the bird not realising that there was a jellyfish in it (the purplish blob in with the seaweed). Apparently there were quite a lot on the beaches and a little boy on the ship did get stung while playing down there.

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