Getaways from A Coruña: day trips and destinations close by.

Every route starts heading south

The city is on a peninsula and every route starts heading south. The AP-9, a toll road, is the main axis: in an hour it takes you to Santiago de Compostela and continues to Pontevedra and Vigo, with a detour along the Salnés expressway to Cambados and along the coast road to Combarro. From Santiago, the AP-53 leads to Ourense. To the west, the AG-55 heads for Carballo and is the way to the Costa da Morte. To the east, the A-6 goes to Lugo and El Bierzo and, at Baamonde, links with the A-8 towards the Cantabrian coast and Asturias.

Without a car, the real option is the Eje Atlántico train: Santiago is about 30 minutes away, and the same line continues to Pontevedra and Vigo, where the boats leave for the Cíes Islands. For the Costa da Morte, the Ribeira Sacra or the Gerês you need a car.

Santiago, Muxía and Fisterra fit without sleeping away

Less than an hour and a half away are the Sunday plans without a night. Santiago, 59 minutes, to climb up onto the cathedral roofs; Muxía and Camariñas, 74, and the O Ézaro waterfall and Cape Fisterra, 84. It is the band in which the return does not weigh on you, even after watching the sunset at the lighthouse.

Between an hour and a half and two hours you reach the Rías Baixas and the interior. Cambados and its albariño wineries are 93 minutes away; Combarro and the Poio monastery, 96, and the trip to the Cíes, 110 counting the road to the Vigo boat. Ourense and the Ribeira Sacra are 115, already at the limit of what is worth doing there and back in a day.

Beyond two and a half hours, the trip calls for a night: Las Médulas are about two and a half hours away, Cudillero a little over two and a half hours, and Guimarães, the Gerês and Porto, already in Portugal, more than three hours.

In winter, the interior is better than the coast

In winter, the interior holds up better than the coast. Ourense's paid hot springs are open all year and fit into the thermal weekend or the Sunday with a bath at Outariz and a set menu at Nova; the free outdoor public pools stay closed until spring 2027. Santiago has no low season: the Sunday at the cathedral is recommended from September to June.

From May to July and in September and October, the albariño of Cambados works well and, in May, September and October, the Ribeira Sacra by boat on the Sil.

In summer the coast rules. The Cíes, with the climb to the lighthouse and an afternoon at Rodas, can only be visited from May to September, with Xunta authorisation and a booked boat. It is also the best time for the lighthouses: the Sunday at Muxía and the Vilán lighthouse and the one at O Ézaro and Fisterra at sunset. Santiago, on the other hand, is less recommended in July and August.

First, the roofs of Santiago cathedral

• Without a car, in a day: Santiago from the cathedral roofs. Half an hour by train, the Portico of Glory, the climb to the granite rooftops, lunch opposite the Mercado de Abastos and the Alameda at sunset.
• By car, in a day: Combarro, the Pontevedra Museum and Poio. An hour and a half along the AP-9 to see the granaries above the ría first thing and the monastery in the afternoon.
• With two nights: the Costa da Morte from Fisterra, an hour and a half away, or the Ribeira Sacra, less than two hours away, with two boats through the Sil canyon and wineries at Doade.