A Coruña y La Mar

Friday, Jan 29th.
First off, I've been told multiple times that its El Mar and not La Mar, but I have done research on this! I was told back in my high school days that La Mar was more of a "I love the ocean" type thing and El Mar was just calling it the ocean. So my research revealed that La Mar was more poetic than El Mar. Some people said that La Mar was more of a romantic use and a sailor or someone who lives close to the ocean talk. I'm using La Mar though so people can just stop arguing with me about it :D

So we took a train to A Coruña for a day trip, it was about 11 Euros to get a roundtrip train pass, which was great because we can easily go back there and there wasn't really any need to be worried about seeing everything while we were there. A Coruña was lovely and wonderful and pretty. All of the above ya know.
We first went to a children's science museum, because I love museums and we happened to stumble upon this museum that Steph had been telling us about. 

Photo Cred: Morgano
The Children's Museum

It was only 2 Euro to go in the Museum, great price let me tell ya. So we of course went in to explore the place and it was awesome. There was a swing set that was set up sort of like a swinging bench, to show people what resistance feels like. There were two swings and you could swing together or in opposite directions to feel the pull that happened. We also watched baby chickens be hatched, which apparently no one in my group has ever done before. I suspect that the museum rotates out eggs and has some agreement with a chicken farm to do the baby chicks because that exhibit seemed like a pretty permanent exhibit.

Photo Cred: Morgano
Soon to be BBQ Chicken

Photo Cred: Morgano
Pendulum 

This Pendulum was on the main floor and dropped one of those sticks every half hour we think. It was pretty cool to look down at once we got all the way up to the top of the Science Museum.

Photo Cred: Morgano
See pretty cool to look down at

Photo Cred: Morgano
The Bathroom Signs at the Museum

Photo Cred: Morgano
La Mar, Love at First Sight

Once we were done with the Museum, we made our way to the beach where we say beachy things like the OCEAN, LA MAR, my true love. We walked out on some rocks to chill out there and also decided that the beach may be considered a nudist beach. The old lady was being smart though because who would want to have tan lines when they could easily do without?

Photo Cred: Allison
Can you tell I have food in my mouth? #lunchwithoceanview

So we were going to head to a park that was supposed to be right on the "riverwalk" (even though its an ocean I'm calling it the riverwalk! Oceanwalk sounds weird to me). Some of us wanted to take the direct route to the park and some wanted to stay on the riverwalk, so we split ways with Allison and I taking the riverwalk. After walking more than the mile that Morgano told us we were going to be walking, we found out that we could not get up to the park because there was a mountain in the way. That was a slight problem so we ended up just doing our own thing for the rest of the day since we couldn't really get to them without backtracking a ton. 

We had planned on going to another park as well, so we first ate lunch with a wonderful view of the ocean and then headed towards the other park to try and meet up with them later. We never did meet up with them until we got to the train station since they hadn't actually gotten to that park, but we had attempted. We took our time walking over to that park, enjoying the view, plus 15 miles was pretty tiring on the feet and for me it felt like my feet were covered in blisters. It was the same feeling as when I was on the Camino though, so I wasn't too concerned about it seeing as it felt like blisters on the Camino and then it was just sore feet not blisters. 

Photo Cred: Allison
Octopus Power!

Photo Cred: Allison
Surfer Fountain

On our way over to the park we came across some random Octopus that was on the side of the riverwalk. I admit that we also saw this same Octopus on the search to the park everyone else was at, but we walked passed it twice and this picture is from the second time we walked passed it. We weren't completely sure where we were walking to get to the park, other than we could see the building that they had pointed out earlier so we were just headed for that building. 

We came across a fountain on our way to the walk as well that had surfers. We found this fountain either right after or right before we spotted the surfers in the water. The surfers were really had to distinguish whether they were birds or not at first because they were just bobbing heads in the water, until they actually got up to do some surf things. They were pretty good and doing flips and such. It must have been a good day for surfing because there had to have been at least 20 people out there waiting their turn to catch a wave. 

Photo Cred: The Lovely Mildred with Allison's Phone

 So the land mass that is the furthest into the above picture, the smallest land you see (other than the island thing in the middle of the picture), is where we started our walk to the second park to try and find our friends. We walked all the way around the ocean on the "riverwalk" to get to the point the picture was taken from which was right now to the building that you see below. The building was called the Tower of Hercules and was an ancient Roman lighthouse, yes I googled what it was.

Photo Cred: Allison
Tower of Hercules

Since we had walked all the way to the Tower of Hercules and it had an amazing view, we just sat on a bench for awhile and listened/watched the ocean waves. It was a very peaceful time and I probably could have sat there all day, even though the ocean breeze was slightly chilly. 

Photo Cred: Allison
Disclaimer: Not actually the bench we sat on 

We of course took some pictures because OCEAN, LA MAR, Love at first sight. I don't think I can describe to you how much I love the ocean.... One of my favorite places on earth really. Here's some random pictures of me and my love though....

Photo Cred: Allison
Before walking to Tower of Hercules

Photo Cred: Allison
the Peninsula of the Tower of Hercules

I may or may not have decided that the Tower of Hercules was a Peninsula. I'm pretty sure I'm right as it was almost an island except connected on one side to the land of land. If I know my geography terminology, which I really don't so don't quiz me, I would say its a Peninsula! Either way it was awesome and a wonderful view on all sides.

Photo Cred: Allison

Photo Cred: Allison
WAVES

Photo Cred: Allison
I'll just live on that bench now please

Photo Cred: Allison
La Mar <3 

But yeah after a few hours of being at the Tower of Hercules and chilling out, we headed back to the train station, with like an hour and a half to get there for our train departure, don't worry we made it with 20 minutes to spare. Luckily when we had walked from the train station the first time we had made comments about things and those comments had gotten us back to the train station, along with signs too but we could remember where we made certain comments and that was super helpful in retracing our steps since we didn't have the maps that other people in our group had. 

It was a really great day, though super tiring. My fitbit had me at 100 flights of stairs and 37k steps for that day, equating to almost 16 miles, so yeah lots of walking. Also, my new boots that I had bought like the week before I left for Spain are already starting to wear out, shows how much walking I've been doing!