A CORUÑA

You will find that A Coruña is a very manageable city and walking is almost always your best bet; you will get anywhere in the center of the city in 30 minutes or less. However, the newer areas of the city, or the outskirts, might be a bit too far walking. Biking could be an option for you, but it is not usually very convenient in winter when it is rainy. A Coruña offers a bus network, although the buses are called trams or  tranvías, that take you all around the city and its surroundings, or las afueras. Tickets are 1.20€. ABANCA also offers a metropolitan card that you can buy for 2€ after getting empadronado by stopping into any ABANCA branch. With this card, a bus ticket is 70 cents, and you do not have to be an ABANCA client to purchase it.  A transit pass, or bono, called the Tarjeta Millennium is also available, which is a great option if you are going to take the bus frequently. You can purchase it when you go get empadronado at the Town Hall in the Plaza María Pita. It is a rechargeable bus card which gives you a discount on the regular price of tickets and can also be used to take books out of municipal libraries. You can use this card to take airport shuttles (at least in Santiago and A Coruña).  The Moovit app is useful in all cases!

You can also download the iTranvias application, which gives transit information for the bus network in real time. If you’re looking to get out of town, the bus station, at Rúa Caballeros, 21 (Buses 1, 1A, 4), offers a range of different companies and services that can take you to other Galician cities/towns or other parts of Spain or Portugal. The train station, located at Avenida del Ferrocarril, 2, offers normal and high-speed trains that take you to other Galician/Spanish cities. There is a also a cercanías, a suburban train, from A Coruña to Ferrol. The MD, or media distancia trains cost 6€ and stop in the smaller Galician towns, while Alvia trains are higher-speed trains that stop in bigger cities like Santiago de Compostela and Ourense; they cost 15-30€. If you want to head out farther away, the Alvedro Airport of A Coruña has regular flights to Spanish destinations, as well as London and Lisbon. Flying out of Santiago or Madrid is also an option, but a former grantee warns, “There is a shuttle, but it only runs a couple times a day. Otherwise you need to take a train or bus to Santiago, and then a bus to the Santiago airport. It’s only worth it if the savings on flights are significant. Also, transportation to and from Madrid can be steep, so book as far in advance as possible.”