Bologna is one of the most beautiful cities in northern Italy. Celebrated for having the oldest university in the world, its other hallmarks include its porticoes and red facades, which change hue with the passage of the sun – a small city with a great history, making it convenient and attractive for sightseeing and highly recommendable for a family getaway.

The past is still alive in the city’s streets, in the medieval inner city, in the Renaissance palaces and villas, the Baroque churches and the squares and gardens. Bologna breathes a young, revolutionary and somewhat bohemian atmosphere. Modernity rubs shoulders with the old, of which its inhabitants can be proud.

The point of departure for touring the city is the Piazza Maggiore which boasts some of Bologna’s major landmarks, notably the Palazzo dei Banchi, Basilica of San Petronio, Palazzo dei Notai, Palazzo d’Accursio, which houses the City Hall, and Palazzo del Podestà. The latter houses the city’s tourist office where they kindly inform visitors of all the possibilities open to family groups. If time is at a premium, there are two options – first, a family friendly guided tour of the city organised by the collective, Mammacult and, second, the 48-hour Welcome Card, which includes free entrance to museums and a guided tour of the historic centre, or the 72-hour Card, which also allows access to the tower and the tourist bus. Each of these is valid for an adult and a child under 12 and either of these cards is worth taking out.

Adjoining the main square is the Piazza del Nettuno, featuring a fountain dedicated to the god of the sea, and the presiding Palazzo Re Enzo, once the hub of Bologna’s economic life and now transformed into a plush multimedia public library. It’s a great place for taking a breather when the fatigue kicks in or in bad weather, as its interior includes a wonderful area for toddlers and babies. And, if you want to keep on reading children’s stories, you only have to go out onto the street again and around the Palazzo Re Enzo, as on the Via Rizzoli you will find the Giannino Stoppani Libreria per Ragazzi. No wonder that each year the world’s leading Children’s Book Fair is held in Bologna.

Pressing on down the same street in the direction of the University Quarter you come to another icon of the city, the medieval Due Torri (Asinelli and Garisenda), the tallest of the twenty towers in Bologna. For the slightly older and bolder young ones, it is great fun to climb up the 498 steps leading up to the Torre Asinelli to see the splendid views of the city. If you get peckish on the way down, you can stroll along the shopping precinct of the Quadrilatero area, the city’s old market. Here, you will be treated to tasty views of fruit, confectionery, fresh pasta and even fresh fish.

Also worth exploring is the “T area” shopping precinct, bounded by the Via Ugo Bassi, Via Rizzoli and the long Via dell’Indipendenza. Walking under the stately porticoes, you will see anything from global brand outlets to long-standing Italian fashion stores, cafés and pastry shops, grocery stores and pharmacies offering a panoply of wares, with plentiful fruit and vegetables awaiting you when you get to the Mercato delle Erbe. There is also a route of old establishments restored in good taste as vintage-style shops. One of these is Les Libellules, a children’s tailored clothes atelier located on the Via San Vitale near the Due Torri.

Another spot well worth visiting is the Finestrella di Via Piella, a small window with canal views located between Via Zamboni and Via dell’Indipendenza which reveals one of the city’s best kept secrets – the underground water streams which once flowed through open-air canals similar to the ones in Venice. We also recommend heading for the Piazza Santo Stefano, presided over by the basilica of the same name, made up of four (formerly six) churches from different periods – a veritable gem! On one side is the Corte Isolani with a covered gallery linking the Strada Maggiore to the Via Santo Stefano. Sited there is La Gallina Smilza, a really cute store with all kinds of items for decorating the home and children’s rooms. A bit further along, at number 70, is one of the most famous and delightful ice-cream parlours in Bologna, the Cremeria Santo Stefano – they have flavours to suit all tastes.

Heading towards the south side of the city you come to the beautiful Margherita Gardens, the ideal spot for a family picnic or for having an aperitif at Vetro, an old greenhouse converted into a bar-restaurant. They have a fine open-air terrace with garden tables and lights inside flower pots, a great ambience for relaxing at the end of the day. It is part of Kilowatt, a coworking facility and idea accelerator based on social, cultural and environmental values which is self-managed under the auspices of the public programme Incredibol, hosted by the Bologna City Council.

Bologna also boasts numerous museums which are highly interesting and attractive for children. Located on the Via dell’Archiginnasio, in the historic centre, is the Archaeological Museum of Bologna which provides insight into the history of the city. A bit further on is the palace of the Archiginnasio, once the main building of what is the oldest university in the West, founded in 1088. There you can visit the Anatomical Theatre, where anatomy classes used to be given. Bologna is designated a UNESCO Creative City of Music, a prestigious title awarded for the wealth of current musical offerings and the excellence of the city’s past, as embodied in the International Museum and Library of Music, with a carefully curated collection of over eighty ancient musical instruments. If what you’re really sold on is art, be sure to visit the Bologna Museum of Modern Art (MAMBO) which hosts a great variety of children’s workshops and other activities.

To claim the icing on the cake to your tour of Bologna, take bus 87 to the Gelato Museum, located on the premises of the famous Carpigiani company, a former manufacturer of machinery and equipment used to make famous Italian “gelato”, the creamiest and most flavourful ice-cream in the world. This edifying museum is dedicated to the study and analysis of the history of craft ice-cream. They also hold a workshop geared to families, which includes a guided tour of the museum and an ice-cream-making workshop based on the original recipe. Enjoy the experience!

Fire up and make your escape to Bologna – book your Vueling here.

Text by Mar Domènech

The Englischer Garten is the biggest park in the city and as the weather was fine we decided to spend the morning there, along with what seemed to be most of the residents of Munich. At the entrance to the park there is a bridge over the River Eisbach on which surfers take advantage of the strong current and resulting waves to practice their sport. It’s great fun watching them, seeing how they organise themselves, waiting for their turn to jump in and do their balancing act.

The park has huge boulevards and other areas full of trees criss-crossed by streams so it’s very relaxing to going for a walk around and crossing the bridges. In the middle of the Englischer Garten you find the Chinese Tower Biergarten. People can take their own food along to the beer gardens but as we didn’t take anything we bought sausages from a stall.

We carry on walking through the park and head for one of the side exits. There we find another small biergarten that caught our attention because they had put a ski lift cabin on their terrace in which you sit to have your coffee. We thought it was a really original idea.

We took Hohenzollernstraße; we wanted to go to a place we’d been recommended by Laurel Robbins on monkeysandmountains.com. This is a restaurant in which they serve potatoes with more fillings that you could possibly imagine.
You can find all types of shops in Hohenzollernstraße: fashion designers, antique shops, shoe shops… The Lili & Milou shop window is full of really original children’s clothes and games.

Unfortunately Kartoffelhaus was closed, more than likely because we had spent too long wandering in the park. We were still not used to German eating hours and the time at which we arrived was probably far better suited to having dinner rather than lunch.

Luckily, we found a place very close by that we really liked, the Schwabinger Wassermann at No. 82 Herzog Street. The idea of being in a street dedicated to the Munich director and producer Werner Herzog also really appealed to us because we’re huge fans of his films. This man drove his entire team mad as a result of his strong character. For the film Fitzcarraldo, he had a 320-ton steamship hauled up a hill rather than resort to special effects.

As we didn’t really know what the German words on the menu meant, we ordered a Thai dish by pointing to what the girl at the next-door table was eating. It looked really tasty and the end result was really hot but incredibly tasty.

The photo shows the dish we were served garnished with red chilli pepper. One thing we will remember the next time we eat something with chilli in it is to make sure we don’t rub our eyes after handling it. The sting in the eye is just the same as on the tongue with the inconvenience that you can’t have a drink to relieve the pain.

Next day, we decided to pay a visit to the centre of the city. The Marienplatz square stands at the heart of Munich with its impressive City Hall, the Peterskirche and the Frauenkirche with their characteristic green cupola adorning the church towers.

The Viktualienmarkt market is very close to the historic centre and its spectacular colours make you stop at each little stall. On one of the side streets are butchers selling all sorts of German sausages and delicious smoked meats. Stalls are distributed all around the maypole in the square offering attractive displays of fruit, vegetables, cheeses and Christmas decorations.

The most popular stall in the entire market was a small log cabin where they served Glühwein Haferl, hot wine with cinnamon and lemon served in little Christmassy china cups. Hand on heart we have to admit that the first sip didn’t go down too well but the taste grows on you as you drink more, apart from the fact that it also warms you up.

We continued on our way to Vits in Rumfordstraße 49, a delicious coffee shop recommended to us by Laurel. They say they serve the best coffee in city here and they aren’t wrong!

Of all the bars in Munich, the recommendation had been not to visit the famous Hofbrauhaus; it’s the one the Germans don’t go to because it’s too touristy. However, as we passed the door – to be honest by chance – we could not resist the temptation of going inside. Sitting at one of the shared tables near the door, we watched groups of tourists going into a small room in which regular clients left their beer glasses, kept under lock and key. When these clients went to the bar, they collect their glass and give it a rinse. It’s easy to tell who the regulars are as they generally come decked out in characteristic Bavarian hats and lederhosen.

In the Odeonsplatzse we found the Tambosi coffee shop, one of the oldest in town. The weather had already turned chilly and on the terrace, where a classical music concert was taking place, people were sitting outside wrapped up in red blankets.

They say that if you touch the noses of the lions on the door of the Münchner Residenz, the former royal palace of the kings of Bavaria, you will have good luck, but only if your touch is light, almost a stroke. If you touch them for too long, you will get the opposite effect. Normally these types of superstitions are usually only observed by tourists, but we can assure you that in this case, the people of Munich themselves are the most rigorous followers of tradition.

Munich was home to the Olympic Games in 1972 and it’s worth paying a visit to its Olympic Village, the Olimpiastadion with its irregular-shaped glass canopy.

Apart from being a sports venue, the Munich Olympic Stadium hosts lots of concerts and many of the artists that have performed there have left their signatures in the cement, just like the Hollywood Walk of Fame. You can find signatures from Metallica, REM, Kiss, Genesis, Aerosmith, Bryan Adams, Carlos Santana and Roger Waters just to name but a few of those that we can remember. It’s a walk through the history of music.

By Mónica Hidalgo on seriebcn.net

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Whitney Richelle is an American journalist based in Florence, Italy. She blogs, hosts and edits videos, and works as project manager for studentsville.it. Follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

Hamburg’s not on your European travel checklist. You’ve never seen a picture of it. And you’re not even exactly sure where it is. No, you don’t really know anything at all about that German city – not even the fact that you’re dying to get there.

1. You Love Water

Situated on the River Elbe, Hamburg is home to the largest port in Germany. But that means so much more than ships, docks, and cranes – we’re talking canals, and lakes, and beaches. You can cruise down waterways crossed by over 2,300 bridges, and while it won’t be in a gondola, that’s more than any city in the world – even Venice. Getting wetter, in the middle of downtown’s spindly church spires and turquoise copper rooftops, there’s a lake lapping at its palaces. On the Chicago-esque Alster, glide off in paddle boats, kayaks, sailboats and tour boats toward white waterfront villas and swaying weeping willows that make it hard to believe the other shoreline is a city center. And whether you sunbathe at the sand beaches here or along the river, you’ve got to cool down with a tall glass of “lake water.” Alsterwasser (Alster water) is a typical summertime drink of lager beer (usually Hamburg-brewed Astra) and lemonade.

Insider Info:
Alster Lake & Boat Tour Metro Stop: Jungfernstieg
Boat Rental Company List
Alstertouristik Canal & Lake Boat Tours
Sand Beaches: Övelgönne beach, Falkensteiner Ufer, Wittenberge beach, Blankenese beach

2. Your Favorite Color is Green
20% of Hamburg is parks, gardens, nature reserves, and recreational areas, so that’s about a one-in-five chance of finding yourself picnicking on sprawling lawns or strolling along tree-lined, waterfront trails. The city’s most popular park is Planten un Blomen (Plants and Flowers), 47 acres of botanical paradise. Free entrance gets you access to the largest japanese garden and tea house in Europe; tropical and cactus greenhouses; rose and apothecary gardens; and the epic fountain shows, featuring 99 nozzles shooting streams up to 36 meters high (118 ft.) The best performances are the Wasserlichtspiele (Water Light Play) concerts after dark, when the whole production gets illuminated in kaleidoscopic colors and synched to the rhythm of classical music scores – Bellagio style.

Insider Info:
Planten un Blomen (site in German only):
Metro Stop: Stephansplaz
Water Shows: 14:00, 16:00 and 18:00 daily, from the end of April to mid-October
Water & Light & Music Shows: Nightly at 22:00 from the end of April to the end of August, and at 21:00 from September to mid-October
Contact Email: plantenunblomen@hamburg-mitte.hamburg.de

3. You Take It Easy
Hamburg is one of the most affluent cities in Europe, but its wealth isn’t conveyed in designer clothes or luxury cars; it’s celebrated in the simple art of enjoying life. Take a cue from the Hamburgers (not the patties, the people) and lie in the grass, sit by the shore, don’t take your coffee to go. It seems like the locals are the ones on vacation here, which explains all the beach bars in the heart of the city. It doesn’t matter if most of them aren’t actually on the beach/shore, they’ve brought in the palm trees, umbrellas, and sun loungers to fool you. And what’s that between your toes? SAND. Drink a mojito barefoot and ask yourself if you got on the right plane.
Insider Info:
Beach Bars (Free Entrance): Hamburger del Mar (local favorite, port view), Central Park (massage with your drink, no water view), Strandperle (on the riverbank), Strandpauli (closest to the Reepherbahn, port view, always packed)

4. You Know How to Haggle
Hamburg’s most popular market gets the whole city up at the crack of dawn once a week. Some are drawn to the Fischmarkt (fish market) by its volatile low prices, others, by the notorious performance of frantic hand gestures and staccato German cries as one seller tries to out-bid the next – but everyone stays for the same reason: brunch. In the nearby Fischauktionshalle (fish auction hall), squeeze yourself in at a communal table to feast on fresh fish, meats, eggs, cheeses, fruits, and just-baked pastries amongst the locals. With everyone around you knocking back beers and tapping their feet to the live band, it feels like Saturday night never ended (precisely because most of them have been partying on since then). Take your haggling even further at the Isemarkt, which, despite being Europe’s longest market, is still relatively undiscovered by tourists. Stands of traditional sausages, seafood spreads, dark pumpernickel breads, garden produce, sticky sweets, flower blossoms, international specialties, spices, crafts, and clothing take you on a nearly one-kilometer-long (0.6 mi) sensory adventure under the city’s elevated metro rails.

Insider Info:
Isemarkt
Hours: Tuesdays & Fridays 8:30 to 14:00
Metro Stop: Between the Eppendorfer Baum and Hoheluft stops
Fischmarkt
Hours: Sunday mornings, 5:00-9:30 from mid March to mid November, 7:00-9:30 from mid November to mid March
Metro Stop: Repeerbahn or Landungsbrücke (10-minute walk from either)
Fischauktionshalle (site in German only):
Address: Große Elbstraße 9
Brunch Hours: 5:30 – noon from April to September, 6:00 to noon from October – March
Price: €16.50-€21.50 per person, depending on the menu
Reservation Email: info@fischauktionshalle.de

5. You’re Not A Vegetarian 
In a city where the people are called “Hamburgers,” it’s a good bet that meat is on the menu. Sources say that the American beef patty itself originated in Hamburg under the name Frikadelle, thicker and without the bun, the way you can still find them in the city’s restaurants and markets today. Then there’s the burger’s wild red-headed cousin, Labskaus, a regional specialty made with corned beef, beetroot, potato, and onion, usually topped with a fried egg. As with all of Germany, pork, from Birnen Bohnen und Speck (green beans with pears and bacon) to currywurst (a hot dog seasoned with curry powder ketchup), is all the rage. But what makes Hamburg a culinary standout is the surf to go with all that turf. Pannfisch (pan-fried fish) is common cuisine thanks to the city’s steady supply of river fish like carp, pike, perch and trout; and sea fish like mackerel, salmon, tuna, and herring (the latter of which you can find fresh or pickled on, and in, practically everything).

Insider Info:
*Try traditional Hamburger restaurant, Deichgraf (site in German only), for heavenly time-tested recipes in an elegant setting on the canal:
-Reservations
-Address: Deichstrasse 23
-Hours: Mon – Fri, 12:00-15:00 and 17:30-22:00; Saturdays, 12:00-22:00; Sundays (July, August, and September only), 12:00-21:00
-Metro Stop: Rödingsmarkt
*For a new take on regional dishes, Fillet of Soul (site in German only) serves up fusion cuisine masterpieces in a modern space next to the city’s contemporary art gallery:
Reservations
Address: Deichtorstraße 2
Hours: Monday, 11:00-15:00; Tues – Sat, 11:00-24:00 (kitchen closes at 22:00); Sunday, 11:00-18:00
Metro Stop: Steinstraße

6. You’re Bored By Traditional Museums
If you don’t like museums, see if visiting a few of these doesn’t change your mind. More than 5 million Europeans set sail from Hamburg to America, and at the BallinStadt Emigration Museum, not only can you search passenger lists for distant relatives, you can walk through period sets complete with talking, costumed mannequins with quite the stories to tell. At Spicy’s, you can smell, taste, and feel your way through 50 crude seasonings at the world’s only spice museum. And who couldn’t appreciate classical paintings with cross-eyed subjects and the pink and blonde (German?) version of Michelangelo’s David at the Diechtorhallen exhibition center for contemporary art and photography – the biggest of its kind in Europe? One last curiosity is the mind-boggling Miniatur Wunderland, the world’s largest model railway museum with more than 12 km (7.5 mi) of tracks. But it’s not at all just trains, there is literally an entire small-scale world inside. If you’ve never seen Austria, Las Vegas, Scandinavia, or the Grand Canyon – this is your tiny chance.

Insider Info:
BallinStadt Metro Stop: Veddel
Diechtorhallen Metro Stop: Steinstraße
Miniatur Wunderland Metro Stop: Baumwall
Spicy’s (site in German only):
-Address: Am Sandtorkai, 34
-Tickets: €3.50
-Hours: Tues – Fri, 10:00-17:00; also open on Mondays, July – October
-Booking: mail@spicys.de
-Metro Stop: Baumwall

7. You’re Ready To Take Nightlife to the Next Level
There’s a street in Hamburg where city nightlife rubs elbows with a bona fide red light district and explodes into a mecca of rebellious debauchery, and it’s called the Reeperbahn. Bars next to strip clubs. Dance clubs in between cabarets and sex shops. The flashing neon lights attract young and old, bachelors and bachelorettes (stags and hens for you Brits), Hamburgers and locals. You don’t have to be a regular to the scene to enjoy these uncommon nights out, but it helps to have a friend in the neighborhood. The St. Pauli Tourist Office offers tours in English by local guides who share the quarter’s unusual history, reveal its hidden sights, tell you where to absolutely go and what’s better left alone, and take you to their favorite bar(s) for a drink (or three) together.

Insider info:
Reeperbahn Metro Stop: Reeperbahn
St. Pauli Tourist Office Tours in English (Fridays and Saturdays at 21:30)
8. You’re a Beatlemaniac
Take it from John Lennon himself, who later quoted, “I was born in Liverpool but raised in Hamburg,” a very significant part of the Beatles early history unfolded in, none other than, the city’s red light district. From 1960 to 1962, the startup band played a total of 281 concerts in the St. Pauli quarter. You can visit the sites where the group once rocked out up to 12 hours a night and 98 days in a row, venue’s like the Top 10 Club, The Star, The Indra, and The Kaiserkeller – the last two of which are still functioning music clubs today. In Beatles Plaz, a city square shaped like a giant vinyl record, no true fan can resist taking their picture framed in the outline of band member-shaped statues (that extra one off to the side is Pete Best). Just make sure you turn around to get the colorful Reeperbahn in the background, not the dull storefront across the street.

Insider info:
Beatles Platz Metro Stop: Reeperbahn
*All sights where the Beatles played are along or near Reeperbahn street

9. You Think Bigger Is – Almost Always – Better 
So you love big cities but could do without how they can be dangerous, dirty, and hard to get around? In Hamburg, you might be alarmed by the overt kindness and English-speaking prowess of strangers, the only trash you’ll see is at the bottom of recycling bins, and it will be difficult to grasp exactly how you’re getting around so quickly in a city seven times larger than Paris and twice as big as London. The metro and bus system runs. like. clockwork. And for those of you traveling with no destination, a sightseeing loop through Hamburg’s most popular neighborhoods on the Die Roten Doppeldecker (Red Double Decker bus) will leave you with quite a few in mind. Observing from your second-story seat under the sun, or hopping on and off at some of the 27 stops delivers a sweeping overview of this XL city in just 90-minutes.

Insider Info:
The HVV: Hamburg’s Public Transportation (Metro & Bus)
Die Roten Doppeldecker Sightseeing Tour
All Die Roten Doppeldecker Tours
*Guides speak German and English. Tell them you don’t speak German and they’ll translate.

10. You Appreciate Good Value
Hamburg is no budget traveler’s Eastern Europe, but for being a big city on the west side of the continent, it’s on the low end of the spending spectrum. Compared to popular tourist destinations like Paris, London, Rome and Barcelona, your money will last longer and get you a higher standard of quality for the same price. Plus, if you like seafood and drinking, you can indulge at absurdly low prices in the city center: around €3.50 for a catch-of-the-day sandwich on a pier, and €2.50 for a beer at a bar. Another great deal is the Hamburg Card, an €8.90 ticket good for 26-hours of unlimited bus and metro rides, and additional discounts of up to 50% at 130 restaurants, tours, and attractions.

Insider Info:
*Brücke 10 has a patio seating on the pier and arguably the best fish sandwiches in town (site in German only):
Address: St. Pauli landing bridges / bridge 10
Hours: Mon – Sat: 10:00-22:00, Sundays 9:00-22:00
Contact
Metro Stop: Baumwall

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Modernism emerged in the late-19th and early-20th century, marking a break in style with the past, in line with the prevailing cosmopolitan, entrepreneurial mindset of the moment.

In 1883, the city needed to expand, leading to the construction of its famous Ensanche district,which spans the present-day streets of Juana de Vega,Picavia,Feijoo, Plaza de Lugo and Plaza de Pontevedra.

With the wealth they had acquired from foreign trade, the local bourgeoisie commissioned luxury residences in this new area, modelled on those of Vienna, Paris, Prague, Budapest and Berlin, in an outward show of their prosperity and cultural pursuits. This enabled them to distinguish themselves from the old Corunnan aristocracy, who still lived in the Ciudad Alta and Ciudad Vieja districts in dilapidated mansions with dark rooms, lacking proper ventilation or glazed window balconies, with their backs to the sea and to modernity.

Strictly speaking, Modernism came to the city in 1906 with the arrival of the Cuban architect, Ricardo Boán y Callejas, and the Corunnan architect ,Antonio López Hernández, who brought the new trends in building design from Austria, Switzerland and Germany. They also brought journals, catalogues and photos from those countries featuring designs by the Austrian, Otto Wagner, and the Belgian, Victor Horta.

One of the most striking features of these houses are the female faces adorning some of the buildings that are still standing. They were mostly inspired by the countenance of an English lady, Elizabeth Siddal, the wife of the Pre-Raphaelite painter, Dante Gabriel Rossetti. She was immortalised in the guise of her languid, enigmatic beauty and her long tresses following her death from an overdose of laudanum, a mixture of opium and alcohol.

Modernism in A Coruña was influenced by the ornamental style of the English architect, Owen Jones (1808-1874). Local artists decorated the facades and doorways with irises, horse-chestnut leaves, water plants, roses and camellias in multi-coloured garlands which seem to reach out to the passer-by and lavish pleasure on the senses.

Galleries are awash with the Mackintosh Rose motif of Charles Rennie Mackintosh, as well as twirling, sap-bearing plant stems. The transparent glass surfaces spread out among them like dragonfly wings. However, Japanese influences also come to the fore in the form of embossed irises, reeds and butterflies on lilies, star-shaped holly leaves and lotus flowers framing windows and lifts, by way of a country-like, ecological architecture. Enjoy a Modernist route through the city – download the guide here.

Modernist Top 5 in A Coruña

1. Casa Rey (1911)

The work of Julio Galán, his architecture distils the essence of the glass city. The rippling cornice, the Mudéjar inspired glazed ceramics and the wrought iron balconies made in the Wonenburger foundry make it a veritable dolls house for the ladies of those times that adorned its balconies with their head-dresses of gardenias and palm leaves. Chocolate was one of the exotic wares shipped from the Indies and other colonies to the port of A Coruña, and chocolateries dating from that period are still open to the public on the streets of Riego de Agua, Plaza de Lugo and Estrecha de San Andrés. Hence the origin of the popular Corunnan demonym ofcascarilleiros(huskers),an allusion to the cocoa husks which filled the streets with their aroma. Plaza de María Pita, 12.

2. Casa Molina (1915)

Designed by Rafael González Villar. The building was the home of Don Raimundo Molina, a representative of Royal Dutch Lloyd and consul of the Netherlands. He was also the father of the well-known mayor, Don Alfonso Molina. Influenced by the Italian Modernism of Turin, the garlands and draped ribbons of the building form a theatrical final curtain to the Old City. C/ Santiago, 2.

3. Kiosko Alfonso (1912)

Also designed by Rafael González Villar, this is a magnificent example of early-20th-century recreational architecture. With its rectangular floor plan, it operated as a café, music hall and cinema, the central screen of which divided the auditorium into two rooms. In the first room, the audience saw the positive film, while a negative of the film could be viewed at a lower fee from the other. Converted into an exhibition hall in 1982, the original Modernist decoration is still intact, including dragons which surround and immerse the audience in a world of mystery and fantasy. Jardines de Méndez Núñez.

4. Compostela, 8 (1910)

Also the work of Julio Galán Carbajal. The foyer, with access at no. 8 Calle Compostela, is the most striking entrance hall in the city. Walls, ceilings and the archway leading into the lift turn the space into an original stuccowork greenhouse, brimming with intertwined water plants, lotuses, lilies and irises. The lions at the entrance, the eagle and the caryatids on the cornice form a symbolic defence of the house’s residents, reminiscent of ancient Persian palaces.

5. Plaza de Lugo, 13 (1912)

Lastly, this bourgeois residence designed by Antonio López Hernández, linked to the family of the Corunnan actor, Fernando Casado Arambillet (better known as Fernando Rey), features overflowing ornamentation as an outward show of the economic prowess of its residents. It is theatrically adorned with a large garland of roses, leading the eye towards the huge female caryatid dominating the ensemble. The decorative syntax makes this the most beautiful building in A Coruña.

Don’t wait to see these Modernist architectural jewels in A Coruña. Check out our flights here.

Turismo A Coruña