Sada

The Wednesday fish auction begins at half four sharp. From the public gallery above the lonja you can watch crates of sardines and gurnard slide across the scales while restaurant buyers in rubber boots bid by hand signals. Below, the harbour pontoon hums with activity: day-trippers from A Coruña stepping off the 25-minute FEVE train, parents clipping children into buoyancy aids for kayak rentals, and retired Brits topping up water tanks in the free motor-home bay. This is Sada in miniature—neither chocolate-box fishing village nor purpose-built resort, but a small working port that happens to lunch very well.

Harbour, Ría and Promenade

Sada sits on the landward shore of the Ría de Betanzos, fifteen kilometres north-east of A Coruña. The water is shallow and sheltered, ideal for learning to sail but chilly even in August; wetsuits outnumber swimmers three to one. A continuous promenade links the marina to the two town beaches, Praia de Fontán and Praia de Meirás. It isn’t a polished, postcard-perfect strip—sections lapse into cracked pavement and weed-filled planters—yet the distance is walkable in flip-flops and the views open suddenly across the estuary’s mirror-flat surface.

Fontán beach fills first at weekends. The sand is fine, barely two hundred metres long, and back-ended by a row of cafés whose tables spill onto the sand. Waiters move between the sun loungers taking orders for cañas and plates of navajas grilled with nothing more than lemon and olive oil. Meirás, five minutes farther west, offers the same sand on a larger scale plus a children’s playground rigged with shade sails. Both beaches shelve gently; at high tide the water reaches chest-height only after thirty metres, making them popular with families whose offspring treat the Atlantic as an oversized paddling pool.

Eating: What “Going for Lunch” Actually Means

Galicians don’t drive here for ambience; they come for ingredients. The local formula is simple: whatever left the auction floor that afternoon, cooked quickly and served with bread that’s still warm. Pulpo a feira—octopus steamed, snipped with scissors and dusted with pimentón—arrives on a wooden plate sized for sharing. A media ración feeds two as a starter; go the whole ración only if you’re skipping pudding. Razor clams (navajas) look intimidatingly phallic but taste like sweet crab; the kitchen splits them down the middle so you lift the meat out in one piece. Budget €14–18 for a ración of either at Marisquería O Paseo, the harbourside restaurant whose plastic terrace curtains flap like sails.

Less theatrical but more transportable is the empanada de bacalao con pasas, a cold square of cod-and-raisin pie that walkers can buy by weight for picnic lunches. Round it off with tarta de queso de Sada, a crustless cheesecake lighter than its New York cousin, sold by the slice in virtually every café for under €3. If you insist on cutlery with a sea view, arrive before two o’clock; tables turn over fast once the Coruña office crowd clocks off for menu del día.

Inland Slopes and Coastal Breezes

Behind the promenade the terrain tilts sharply upwards. Narrow lanes wind between eucalyptus plantations and weekend chalets, delivering occasional glimpses of the ría far below. A thirty-minute ascent on the signed path to the Torre de Fontán rewards with a sixteenth-century stone keep that isn’t quite a castle and isn’t quite open; the door is usually locked, but the grassy headland around it makes a handy picnic spot. Carry on another kilometre and you reach the Faro de Punta Segaño, a stubby lighthouse planted on a cliff that faces the full Atlantic. Up here the wind accelerates; hold onto your hat and keep small children away from the unfenced edge. On blowy days spray drifts upward, coating sunglasses with salt.

The same wind keeps summer temperatures mercifully lower than inland Galicia—mid-twenties rather than low-thirties—but also whips the sea into a mess of whitecaps. When that happens, kayaks are hauled out and lifegones raise the red flag. Conversely, winter is mild: rarely below 8 °C at midday, though the damp air feels colder. Between November and March you’ll share the promenade mainly with dog-walkers and the odd jogger; cafés reduce hours but most stay open, grateful for the year-round custom of retired locals playing dominoes over cortados.

Getting There, Staying Put, Moving On

A Coruña airport is twenty minutes away by hire car; Ryanair’s Stansted route runs year-round, Gatwick weekends in summer. If fares spike, fly into Santiago and take the AG-9 motorway east (45 min). Public transport works for city-free days: Renfe’s C-1 commuter train links Sada to A Coruña every thirty minutes, and a Bonotren ten-journey card cuts the fare to €1.35 per hop. Buses continue along the coast to Pontedeume and Ferrol, handy for cliff-top walks in the Fragas do Eume.

Accommodation clusters around the harbour. Expect €70–90 for a double in a small guest-house, slightly more for balconied rooms overlooking the pontoon. The lone three-star hotel has lift access and free bike storage; apartments aimed at Spanish families rent by the week in July-August, prices rising to €140 a night for two-bed units with underground parking. Motor-homers praise the large, level harbour car park: free October-May, €6 per day high season, with fresh-water tap and grey-water drain—rare amenities on this stretch of coast.

When the Crowds Arrive (and How to Dodge Them)

Sada’s population quintuples on sunny August Sundays. The promenade becomes a slow-moving queue of pushchairs and grandparents, and pavement parking turns into a competitive sport. Three tactics minimise pain: arrive before eleven, leave the car on the inland streets behind the church, or simply come in June or September when sea temperatures are still 19 °C and tables are available without theatrics. If you must visit in peak season, book lunch for three o’clock; kitchens stay open until four, and the beach empties while Spain collectively eats.

Rainy days offer a different kind of authenticity. Galician drizzle—softer than British vertical rain—drives punters into the covered market on Calle Real (Wednesdays and Saturdays). Stallholders sell knobbly peppers, chorizo loops and the region’s cheapest socks, three pairs for a fiver. There’s no souvenir trade to speak of; as one Yorkshire motor-homer noted online, “You come here to eat, walk and watch the boats, not to buy tea-towels.” Accept that, and Sada’s understated rhythm—auction, tide, coffee, paddle—feels like permission to do very little, very happily.