Tower of Hercules, A Coruña

Rising on a windswept Atlantic headland at A Coruña, the Tower of Hercules was built by the Romans, probably under Trajan around AD 100, to guide ships along the treacherous Galician coast. It is the oldest lighthouse still in operation anywhere in the world, its beam having swept the sea for nearly nineteen centuries. Legend links it to Hercules, who supposedly slew the giant Geryon here and buried his head, and to the Celtic myth of Breogán, whose tower his son gazed from toward Ireland. A neoclassical stone casing was added in the 1790s, but the Roman core still stands beneath, faithfully doing the job it was built for.