Magical Galicia: the Tower of Hercules, the giant Breogán and the Knights Templar

Welcome to this new trip along the Death Coast.

Figure, in the shield of La Coruña, a tower at the base of which a head appears, while at the ends shells or scallops are visible, also indicative of its situation within that other pilgrim road, which is known as the Camino de the Coast or the English Way.

Legend has it that in these northern latitudes, the famous demigod, Hercules, fought with the giant Breogán, who killed and in commemoration of such a feat, a tower was erected, in memory of such a magnificent event.

Something similar, in short, with the subsequent legends of the Camino de Santiago, which refer to the fratricidal struggle between the hero Roldán and the Saracen giant Giant Farragut, whose struggle can be seen represented in a multitude of Romanesque capitals that are in the numerous churches of the Route Sacred and even, in the Palace of the Kings of Navarra, in the important town of Estella.

Whether the legend is true or not - and let's never forget, that in every legend there is always a part of reality, however small - the truth is that the archaeologists who worked for years in this place, if they discovered, at least, the remains of a primitive building of Roman origin, which showed, that the Romans already considered the place important and established a lookout here.

But the place, in addition, must have been, in those dark proto-historical times, a focus of worship for those enigmatic builders of dolmens and menhirs and although there is currently none left standing, a modern poster reminds us of it under the suggestive name from 'Paseo de los Menhires'.

The scholars also affirm that in this precise place, it is very possible that the Templars had the mysterious entrustment of Faro.

A commission, which apparently, as suggested by some of these historians, was the origin of the current city of La Coruña.

Modern, although notoriously suggestive, is a bronze sculpture, representing one of those superb 'Venus' of the Paleolithic, representative of those distant civilizations that worshiped the figure of the Great Mother, which indicates, in passing, the Primal cults that were located in these desolate places, close to the Finis Terrae, centuries and millennia before the first Christian evangelizers appeared.

There is also, about a hundred meters from the Tower, an allusion to the Rose of the Winds, or Rosa Nautica: a circle that indicates the different directions in which the circumference of the horizon is divided.

The place, also beaten by its four sides, invites a melancholic walk through the reverie, contemplating the beauty and at the same time the bravery of the sea that falls on its imposing cliffs, making us meditate on that mysterious past, to which the French libertine poet François Villon called 'the snows of yesteryear'.