Vigo, Galicia

Storyline: Winter 2025: Portugal and Spain

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Wed, Feb 5

We stand on the top of Castro Mountain, the highest point and right in the centre of Vigo, admiring the spectacular views across the Ria de Vigo, which estuary is sheltered by the Cíes Islands. Its summit is crowned by the Fortaleza de Santa María do Castro, constructed in 1665 and currently an archeological site.

We arrived in Vigo, our last stop in Spain, yesterday. This Galician city is home of Europe’s largest fishing fleet and is considered the seafood capital of Spain.

Vigo’s urban area is built on both a hill-fort (castro – a pre-Roman fortified settlement; from Latin castrum ‘castle’) and a Roman settlement. It is said that its name is derived from Roman and means a small village. (All the ‘…casters, ‘…chesters’ and …cesters’ in the UK share this Latin root – A.)

Vigo is a city and municipality of the Pontevedra province in the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula and the most populous municipality in Galicia. Known for its freezing and canning industry it also is one of the largest and most important fishing ports in all of Europe. As many other European cities, it has rich and complex history.

A high-speed Ave train took us from Madrid – Chamartín to Vigo Urzáiz in about four hours. The first class of this train was interesting.

Apparently, the carriages of this Ave 106 are extra-wide and seats in the first class (comfort class according to Renfe terminology) are 2 X 2. In the second class they are 2 by 3. Thus no one can sit alone. Since we travel together it wasn’t a problem for us but I can see the disappointment for some.

As in other Spanish train stations, we and our luggage were scanned. This was the only place though where our documents were checked before we could enter the platform.

The car was clean and the food service was good. It was interesting for us to see the online menu (on the screen in front as in an airplane) was in 7 languages: English, French and 5 Spanish dialects if I can put it like that: Spanish, Galician, Catalan, Basque, Valencian/Catalan. And this is in one European country! Talk about bilingualism in Canada, especially west of Ontario.

The train took us through lovely scenery, fog which we didn’t expect, snow-capped tops of the mountains in the distance,

tunnels, viaducts and bridges connecting the neighbouring hills, white cloud-specked skies. We eventually arrived at Vigo Urzáiz train station.

This modern terminus was opened in 2015 to handle trains on the high-speed line. The platforms are underground of a lovely multi-level shopping mall.

We’ll depart from another train station Vigo Guixar and I have read that there are some 500 meters between them if one knows how to get to the route. Will come back to the mall and discover the path just out of curiosity, since we won’t need it for other reasons. Our accommodation was in the middle of the old city centre, somewhat between the two train stations.

It was nice day and we walked slowly through the fascinating pedestrian and shopping area.

Our accommodation is located on a quiet alley not accessible by cars or even bikes.

Another steep alley leads to it.

And the houses around are only pedestrian-accessible. Stairs led down to the street fronting the water.

Entering the accommodation was interesting. It is very popular in that part of the world to provide a link (one must have a mobile phone) to open the front and often any other door to the apartment. By now we are used to it. But often we have problem with the links. In such case, we call the host and they open it for us. Here however we could not connect with our host. The link wasn’t clickable. After some trial and error, I found that this particular link worked as a slider. Phew! We are in.

Stairs led to the first floor (second in North American terms). Another link-locked door and we are in. Dropped the luggage and walked out to check the neighbourhood.

Waterfront is really interesting, but approaching dinner time we could not find acceptable place and turned back up the hill to a restaurant-filled square.

We’d find later that this Plaza de la Constitución is the place to be (or one of many such squares – A). And by now we also know that we have to find a bar-like place that also serves some tapas at our dinner time. Because as everywhere else, kitchens here too open at 8pm or even 9pm. So we found the Polbo Bar. Polbo – Octopus in Galician.

They had tapas and drinks. We try two different local red wines with padron peppers, octopus as tapas. Off to home after.

The apartment is really small. And although it may have been bigger than the one we used a few times in Lisbon, the latter was a much better and comfortable design. We also discovered that it was cold, way too cold, although it had two electrical heaters, without fans. But this wasn’t its biggest problem. The bed, listed as double, was about 120cm (or even less). There was a couch in the living room and Alex usually prefers them. But at that moment he had a bad back.

So this morning we did the laundry and plotted an escape. We need the day for the laundry to dry. But we’ll move for the last two nights. Booked a hotel suite (cheaper than a room at that time of the year) for the last two nights. We are only 4 nights in Vigo.

We began our discovery walk with the waterfront. Sunny and promising day. A huge monster cruise-ship was blocking the harbour and its views. I absolutely detest this monsters that descent to small places with cruisers perhaps outnumbering the local population.

The migrants used the opportunity to maybe make a buck or two. Just maybe. As the cruisers descended from the ship, they spread their fake goods on sheets ready to take off if police show up. It was the first time in the years observing these “sellers” that we actually saw a lady buying a bag. Why buy a fake bag is beyond my comprehension.

An interesting monument “O Banista do Areal” by a local self-taught sculptor Francisco Leiro, occupies the space of Praza da Estrela between the steep stair up and the harbour.

Further along the boardwalk we find another interesting monument: Jules Verne sitting on an octopus. We were walking towards our departure train station. It is adjacent to the harbour and aside from some passenger trains it accommodates the freight services. Checked. The passenger section of Vigo Guixar is much smaller than the Vigo Urzaiz.

Back towards the city centre we stumbled into a nice pub-brewery. It is past 3pm. This is the only time during our trip I’d have a beer.

We share the Galician version of patatas bravas, chat with the server native to Galicia, but travelled around the world for quite some time.

 

Our goal for today was the stronghold on the Castro Mountain. It wasn’t far from the pub, but after a beer or two (for Alex) we weren’t sure we’d make it up the hill. It is some 300m up said the server. Well, let’s at least find the starting point so we know for tomorrow, we decided.

As we walked towards the hill we spotted covered escalators up. Ha, perhaps with the escalators we can do it.

Two or three streets up, escalators zigzagging from one level to another, we thought we were at the top.

Nice views to the right. But deceptive! We turned our heads to the left to see the hill rising above our heads.

Oh well, at least the escalators saved us a few levels of hiking. We are already here, so why not try? It didn’t look that high and that much left of it. Until we began our ascent.

We walk through beautiful gardens, stairs at every corner. The stronghold reveals itself slowly with every turn.

As we think we are at the top, another wall shows up.  Finally, we are at the top, just in time to wave goodbye to the monster cruise ship.

Spectacular views all around. Perhaps we could stay for the sunset. But sooner than later the beer consumed earlier would call for an action. We took the trails down as it was shorter and easier on the knees than were the stairs.

Back home the laundry was dry and I packed for the next day’s move. We still had lots of food with us. Some of it will be transferred all the way to Porto.

Thus, Feb 6

After having breakfast, we inform our host that we are leaving and went to the hotel with the idea to leave our luggage and go for lunch. Perhaps not surprisingly, our apartment was ready. Judging by the people at breakfast the next morning, I don’t think the hotel is busy at all. We settled comfortably in this huge (and warm! – A) 2-room suite with kitchenette hidden behind a roller blind.

The reception staff recommended a local tapas place for lunch. It was in the same restaurant area we’ve already been to. It is where the locals eat and very cheap. We ordered a few dishes, but were pleasantly surprised when the bread came with two small bowls of soup. Delicious.

We loved it. Next day we’d look there for dinner, but it would not open until 9pm, too late for us. For today’s dinner however we only needed another bottle of wine. Have to advance with consuming our own food.

The last day in Vigo we’d revisit the big shopping mall where the train brought us from Madrid.

We walked around, had some drinks and walked onto the spectacular Halo walkway with its panoramic city views and an elevator that takes one from Urzaíz train station to the small streets leading to Guixar station. All together about 500m apart. The views from the top were spectacular.

One last padron pepper and patatas bravas with local wine followed by sangria before we pack before leaving Spain very early next morning.

A few more facts about Vigo. It apparently is the Spain’s rainiest city. Although often cloudy, we did not experience rain during our short stay.

It has spectacular beaches we didn’t visit since they are for the warmer weather. And I’ll quote The telegraph here: “ A major fishing port, the seafood is superb and you’ll get a warm welcome from Vigoans, who tend to be less buttoned up than some of their neighbours inland.”

Goodbye Spain, we hope to be back in the fall.