Conversation with Antonio Sandoval Rey on the Tower of Hercules

Writer and environmental communicator Antonio Sandoval Rey discusses his literary work "A Torre" [The Tower], a travelogue exploring the UNESCO-listed lighthouse of the Tower of Hercules in A Coruña through the lens of natural writing and sense of place. He explains his approach of walking the landscape whilst engaging in an interior monologue, creating layered connections between personal memory, literary references, and ecological observation.Sandoval emphasises dialogue with landscape over academic systematisation, advocating for engagement through art and personal experience to reveal a site's totemic significance. The conversation addresses the transformation of the lighthouse's surroundings from an agricultural-pastoral landscape to an urban garden, the concept of baseline loss in ecology and heritage, and the relationship between legends and lived experience.Sandoval reflects on how legendary figures such as Breogán and Hercules function as characters and references rather than myths in contemporary consciousness, noting the absence of ritual celebration. He explores A Coruña's distinctive identity as a commercial port city with limited religious hierarchy, linking the Tower's function as a lighthouse to civic freedom and, in particular, to examples of women’s relatively greater liberty in the city.