La Coruña and the Best Meal at Sea

This is the sixth post in a series about our first European vacation. We booked a repositioning cruise aboard the Celebrity Apex, which would depart from Barcelona, Spain, sail west through the Straits of Gibraltar, stopping in Portugal, first Lisbon then two nights in Porto, with a final stop in La Coruña, Spain, before disembarkation in Southampton, England. Check out Porto and Guimarães – Awesome Time Traveling in Portugal.

After an amazing two days in Porto and Guimarães, we were back on the Celebrity Apex, ready for a beautiful sail-away, and looking forward to dinner at one of the ship’s unique speciality restaurants, Eden. Tomorrow would be our final port day, this time in La Coruña, a city in Spain’s Northwestern Galicia region.

Eden

Eden sits in the aft of all Celebrity Edge class ships, except for the one debuting later in 2025 (We’re looking at you Celebrity Xcel – see you in November!) It features three stories of floor to ceiling windows, which made our sail-away timed reservation even more special. It features an open kitchen, with an abundance of greenery and cascading plants that give it an oasis-like feel.

First, drinks. I had the “Pea”, made with Hendrick’s Gin, Basil Soup, Amontillado Sherry, Lime Juice, Blanched Spring Peas, Virgin Olive Oil, and Aquafaba. Rona had the “Forbidden”, made with Tito’s Vodka, Lemon Juice, Simple Syrup, and Apple Butter. The presentation of these cocktails was so slick, and they tasted great. See if you can guess which drink is which in the photo.

For appetizers, I had the Jumbo Lump Crab Cake, which was laden with crab, with minimal binder, and flat out the best crab cake I’ve had anywhere, on land or sea. Rona ordered the Pan Roasted Carabinero Shrimp, which was excellent. Lastly, after the high praise Linzi from Suite Natured gave it, we had to share the Truffled Risotto, which was velvety and creamy, and lick-the-bowl worthy, though we’re too classy for that.

For dinner, Rona had the Lobster Casserole, an outstanding dish in which lobster is truly the star. I had the Filet Mignon and Mini Short-Rib Wellington. The pairing of the perfectly cooked, lean filet with the richer short rib wellington was delicious.

Somehow, we saved a tiny bit of room for dessert, ordering the Aztec Chocolate Tart and Butterscotch Crème Brûlée. Now, I dislike raspberries – it’s the devil’s berry – and the chocolate tart normally comes with a raspberry compote. However, they were awesome enough to keep it off the plate for my plebeian taste.  The vanilla gelato that accompanies it balances nicely with the dark chocolate. The butterscotch crème brûlée was the rock star here, however. The server also brought out a petit four tower, containing several more sweet treats.

All the staff in the restaurant were extremely friendly, and never pretentious. Throughout the meal, our primary server as well as other staff checked on us frequently. Our water glasses were never empty. The combination of the setting along with the presentation of every element of the meal, from drinks to appetizers, mains and dessert was artful and immersive. This was the best meal we’ve had at sea, and franklly one of the best anywhere.

La Coruña

Our final port during this cruise was La Coruña, Spain. That’s the Spanish name for the city, by the way, whereas the Galician name is A Coruña. Given that the city is in the Galicia region, A Coruña is the official name. Since most English-speaking people call it La Coruña, according to Wikipedia anyway, we’ll refer to it as such today.

YouTube research on what to do and see in La Coruña yielded fewer videos and less insight as compared with our prior ports. Early on and fairly clueless about the city, we had reserved a $140 per person, 4.5 hour walking tour from Celebrity because our go-to tour company, Shore Excursions Group, had only a single tour, which was even more expensive. As we debated whether to keep the reservation or cancel and DIY the city, some folks from Tours 4 Cruisers posted their information in our specific cruise’s Facebook group. 

For 25 Euros (about $28) per person, they offered a 2.5 hour A Coruña City Tour that hit up the highlights. The reviews were also positive, so we cancelled the cruise’s tour and booked this one, and saved a pile of cash. Was it worth it? Let’s see.

The ship arrived around 8:00 AM, and with the tour departing at 10:30, we had time for breakfast before disembarking. La Coruña cruise terminal is compact, and we were quickly off the ship and outside the terminal, where the red-shirted Tours 4 Cruisers staff were waiting as promised. There were a mix of passengers with reservations and those booking on the spot. The staff directed us toward one of the tour buses waiting alongside the terminal.

A word about tour buses. The ones we experienced in Portugal and Spain are so much more sleek than the commuter coach buses in the Northeastern United States. The windows are huge, the seats are comfortable, and there are USB charging ports on every seatback.

The tour departed about 20 minutes late, as we wound up having to wait for some late-arriving passengers, but then we were on our way. Our local tour guide sat up front and spoke excellent English. She advised us that we would be traversing the tour route in reverse, which sometimes happens based on La Coruña traffic. After a 15-minute drive, the bus pulled into a parking lot at the entrance to Monte de San Pedro Park. The plan allowed for 30 minutes to walk around before meeting back at the bus.

Monte de San Pedro is a hilltop park, transformed from a former military coastal defense site, and offers stunning panoramic views of the city, coastline, and the Atlantic Ocean. It’s an easy, mostly flat walk through the park, and there are free, clean bathrooms available.

A hedge labyrinth greets you upon arrival, and in the distance stands the Tower of Hercules with the Atlantic Ocean beyond. Much of the park is covered in bright green grass, upon which you can take brilliant photos of the Atlantic Ocean, and the city itself. Farther along, there is a World War II era coastal gun battery. These are absolutely colossal guns acquired from England in 1929, and could fire one-ton projectiles more than 23 miles. 

After we got back to the bus, the guide told us about our next stop. Now, if you have been following us on this journey, you may have noticed we quite like octopus. So imagine our excitement when we found out our next stop involved a large octopus. After a five minute drive out of Monte de San Pedro along the coastal road of Avenida Fernando Suárez García, we pulled over in a small parking lot along the seafront promenade. Directly across the street, and with the Atlantic Ocean behind it sits O Polbo, a tile statue created in 2013, as a tribute to the local culinary specialty. Our tour guide was kind enough to take pictures.

Saddened that we were not eating Octopus at that moment (don’t worry, we would eventually do so), the bus took us on a 10 – 15 minute journey to the next major stop, the Tower of Hercules. This 1st century structure is the oldest remaining lighthouse in the world, and the only Roman lighthouse still in operation today. According to UNESCO World Heritage Centre, it has continuously functioned as a maritime beacon for nearly two millennia, guiding ships into the harbor and along the Atlantic route.

The parking lot is below a long, steep walk up toward the lighthouse, which sits on a rocky hill surrounded by a few sculptures. The entire trek affords gorgeous views of the ocean, including one particular ship that seemed to follow us back to the cruise terminal. There were vendors and performers on the wide path, one of which was playing bagpipes, a custom not just limited to Scotland. The Galician region shares a Celtic heritage with other regions like Scotland and Ireland. The Celts settled in northwestern Iberia long before Roman times, and in this part of Spain, bagpipes are known as the gaitas.

On the way up, we stopped for a picture of a King Breogán statue, a mythical Celtic king who holds deep cultural significance in Galician legend and identity. I took an opportunistic selfie with a statue of a Roman soldier as well. While the tour did not include admission into the light house, we were a bit tuckered out by the time we reached it, and given the amazing views all around, did not feel cheated.

After about half an hour at this ancient lighthouse, we returned to the bus for one last stop before heading back to the ship. After a 5 – 10 minute drive along the coast, we arrived in a parking lot across the street from the Castle of San Anton, a 16th century strategic fortress. It was originally built as a coastal fortification to protect La Coruña from pirate raids and maritime threats, such as Francis Drake’s 1859 attack. From the 17th to mid-20th century, it also served as a prison and an isolation hospital for arriving sailors during epidemics.  It became a museum in the 1960’s.

From this location, we could see the cruise terminal, and one party decided to walk back rather than ride, but most of us stayed on board the bus, which dropped us a short distance from the cruise terminal. This afforded us the ability to visit the Gardens of Mendez Nunez, which sits in the heart of the city, and do some shopping and have lunch.

The Gardens of Mendez Nunez featured prominently in the limited number of La Coruña videos we’d found on YouTube.  This is a nice city park, featuring slides and swings for the kids and a peaceful place to relax. However, it also offers something unexpected, a bronze John Lennon statue.

Every December 8th, which is the anniversary of Lennon’s death, locals leave flowers and candles at the statue to honor his legacy. The project behind the construction of the statue was spearheaded by local Beatles fans and cultural groups, with support from the city council, and rooted in admiration for Lennon’s message of peace and universal creativity.

Also in the park sits a striking granite and bronze sculpture, a monument to the Galician poet Manuel Curros Enriquez, unveiled in 1934. It features allegorical figures, Celtic-inspired forms, and symbolic carvings representing Galician identity, social struggle, and the poet’s enduring legacy.

Now it was time for our final meal in Spain before heading back to the ship. We wandered our way through the historic old city, scrolling through Google Maps for a Tapas restaurant. We stuck our head in a few, some of which were incredibly popular and super busy. We wound up finding Mesón As Cavas, a traditional Galician restaurant on the pedestrian street Rúa Galera. 

Overcoming our limited Spanish and the staff’s limited English, we ordered Estrella Galicia, a locally brewed pale lager. Along with a couple of beers and a free plate of tomato bread with basil, marinated tomatoes, and anchovies, we ordered what turned out to be an enormous plate of razor clams, my new personal favorite kind of clam, and of course, grilled octopus. The food was excellent, though the octopus was not quite as fantastic as we had at Puertocillo in Barcelona. Meal, drinks, and gratuity cost us $51. No complaints there!

With our bellies full, we made the 10 minute walk back to the cruise terminal, and were quickly back on board. Naturally, we had our requisite stop at Café al Bacio for coffee and something sweet, before noticing out the window the very same Castle of San Anton we’d seen earlier that day. Looking back, we made the right decision on the tour. It offered us the highlights of La Coruña in a very structured way, and then left us time to explore the city center at our own pace, all for a much lower price than anything we had otherwise found.

So, that was it for Spain and Portugal. We made amazing memories in Barcelona, Lisbon, Porto, Guimarães, and La Coruña, and are happy to have shared them. Still, our first European trip wasn’t over. Tonight there would be Baked Alaska for dessert, and a sea day tomorrow before the ship arrived in Southampton, where we would disembark for a jam packed two days in London. Stay tuned!

What has been your favorite meal at sea? Let us know in the comments.