Alone in Galicia: Maria Pita Versus The English
I heard two versions of the fabled heroine’s life. The first one says that when the 4,000 defenders of La Coruña faced the 23,000 English troops, her husband was slain and she picked up his lance.
15 May 2019
I woke up at 1030 because I couldn’t fall asleep from watching Felicity, fascinated and irritated at once. I was going to Moito Conto bookshop on San Andres to buy Mary Jo’s book when Yolanda texted. She was going to the library, did I want to get a card? It took a few minutes, and the card came with a gift bag: coffee mug, pocket notebook, pens, highlighter, eraser, bookmarks. If the citizens don’t read, it’s not from lack of encouragement. Then we walked to city hall to process fees for the poetry event, which took a bit longer. Y showed me the elevator that goes up the hill, then we walked through the oldest part of town, past the square at the convent of Santa Barbara and the church with the twisted tower, to the San Carlos garden where Sir John Moore is buried, to the Fundacion Luis Sioane where Y’s friend Jorge Cabezas is having a retrospective. Maybe his last show, unfortunately, because he’s had a stroke which affected his cognitive functions. Then we went to Moito Condo, where I got Mary Jo’s most recent book.
Tomorrow I’m going on a guided tour of the city.
16 May 2019
By 945 I was at Plaza de Luego, feeling very pleased with myself for having found FNAC without trouble. I walked around, took pictures of some gorgeous Art Nouveau buildings. At 10 sharp the tour guide, Margarita Parada, arrived. She moved here from a small town near Vigo, is married and has three kids, two of them at university, and she gives tours to visitors from the cruise ships. We began the tour at the very clean and modern wet market.
Galicia’s unique geography, climate, and estuaries give it a rich variety of marine life. Fishermen unload their catch every day at 5am at fish auctions in the port, and the market is their first stop. The fish, shellfish, crabs and octopi are so fresh they’re alive. Upstairs, vendors sell milk and cheese—there’s a café on the premises where they’ll cook what you bought, vegetables and fruit. The climate and the soil are great for trees but not for fruit, so most of the fruit is from out of town. Margarita noted that many Galicians practice subsistence farming, but they receive subsidies from the government. Like most places La Coruña has very rich people and people living in poverty, but the super rich (like the owner of Zara) live and pay taxes here, so there are funds for social projects.
Margarita pointed out the details of early 20th century buildings whose ground floors are mostly taken up by Inditex stores and other fashion brands. We passed the Cantons, the narrowest part of the city. La Coruña’s land area is small and there is no more room for the city to grow. There are many small gardens. By the marina there is a living calendar made of plants and a clock made of plants. There was a resident with a large collection of clocks who left them to the city so they would not be dispersed—the clocks are displayed in public areas. In the gardens by the marina there are Art Nouveau kiosks and halls and statues of prominent citizens. The only statue of a non-Coruñes is that of John Lennon sitting on a rock with his guitar—a former mayor had been a huge fan.
La Coruña is submerged and slowly sinking. The tides rise and fall six meters in the course of a day. The Crystal City on the Avenida Marina—the glass balconies—were originally the backs of the buildings. The fronts faced the city, the backs faced the sea, and the glass protected houses from wind and salt spray while conserving heat in the winter.
On Calle Real there is a plaque on the building where the thirteen year old Pablo Picasso had his first exhibit.
At Plaza Maria Pita I heard two versions of the fabled heroine’s life. The first one says that when the four thousand defenders of La Coruña faced the 23,000 English troops sent by Elizabeth I in retaliation for the Spanish Armada, Maria Pita’s husband was killed while standing right next to her. Instead of fleeing, Maria Pita grabbed the lance he had dropped and launched it at the enemy. The lance struck the English standard bearer, who dropped the flag, leading the English to think they had surrendered.
In the second version, Maria Pita asked her neighbors to give her all the wine they could spare. The English did not produce wine, but were known to be very fond of it. So Maria Pita and her friends got the English drunk, flattering them that they’d already won over the pathetically outnumbered Coruñes. When the English were drunk, the Coruñes attacked. There may be something to this, since Sir Francis Drake subsequently remarked that it was not the Spanish who defeated his army, but Spanish wine.
During the Napoleonic Wars England was Spain’s ally, and Sir John Moore was killed as he led La Coruña’s defense. The French were so impressed by his valor that they had him buried in a special spot, a garden overlooking the fortress and the city’s defenses. Every year on the anniversary of his death a white rose appears on his grave—as the gardens are locked every night, legend has it that the ghost of his fiancee, the Lady Stanhope, puts the rose there. Schoolchildren attempt to hide in the garden after closing time so they can catch this “ghost.”
Geographically Galicia is closer to Portugal and Britain than to the rest of Spain. It has no flamenco or bullfights—this would be absurd for farmers and cattle ranchers—but it has Celtic music and brujas. Not the crones with long noses and brooms that appear in tourist souvenirs, but regular women who can bend others to their will, i.e. Galician matriarchs.
Our last stop was the 12th century church in front of the palace that was presented as a gift to the family of the dictator Franco. The construction of churches usually begins with the altar and continues towards the doors, so the architectural style of the façade is more recent than the altar’s. Being buried closer to the church was supposed to guarantee faster admission to heaven, so aristocrats were buried right inside the church walls. At the other Romanesque church someone is buried in the wall beside the altar, which probably makes that person the richest in La Coruña.