A Coruña

La Coruna is a port city on Spain's sunny Galician coast, and has a little something for everyone: plentiful shopping, excellent food, a vibrant nightlife scene, and a sweeping gold crescent of sand. It also boasts a charm-filled old town to explore, centered on a grandiose town square, Plaza de Maria Pita.

A statue of its namesake, a 16th-century woman who warned the town of Sir Francis Drake's invasion, takes prominent place, while the city's ornate Town Hall attracts most of the attention with its bronze-colored domes. A Coruna's star attraction, however, is the Tower of Hercules, a stout Roman lighthouse, which offers sweeping ocean views.