Vigo, Spain

03/11/25
Vigo – Spain

Today, we arrived at out first port-of-call, Vigo, in Spain.

This wasn’t meant to be our first port-of-call; that was meant to be Horta, in the Azores. On the very first night of our trip, after leaving Portsmouth on Thursday, however, the captain explained how a big storm in the North Atlantic made that not such a good idea. Instead, we’ve tip-toed our way around the Bay of Biscay heading south, trying to avoid as much of the storm as possible, and made Vigo our first stop.

We’ve been to Vigo before, on two occasions, but neither of us could remember it. After two quite rough days at sea, it was just nice to be able to step ashore and have a whole day to ourselves, where everything didn’t revolve around the painting classes.

Before coming away, Tracey had downloaded a walking route from a tourist website for Vigo, which we began to follow, using Maps.Me. It was a Sunday, though, so the town was very quiet. Rows of wooden cabins belong what appeared to be a craft market were closed up, so following the route to the letter (which entailed walking the length of what would have been a bustling market on any other day) seemed a bit pointless. Eventually, we digresed away from the route and started to make our way up towards a large park with a fort at its highest point.

The weather had started out a little grey, but by the time we were climbing the steps to the fort, the sun was starting to come out with more regularity, and by the time we reached the upper terraces, we were able to enjoy some quite splendid views across the city and the bay.

The sound of a Spanish guitar drifted across the gardens making for a very pleasant, relaxing atmosphere. It being Sunday mean that many of the local inhabitants were there too, enjoying the sunshine and the views.

We identified what appeared to be a small cafe just down from the fort, a short way down, on the opposite side of the hill, which is where we headed around midday. We ordered sandwiches from the printed menu, which was all in Spanish. When my bacon and cheese sandwich came, I was amazed at the sheer size of it. Don’t get me wrong; it was lovely, and exceptionally good value at only €6, but it seemed like half a loaf of bread.

After lunch, we followed the most interesting footpaths we could find back to our starting position, and, eventually, back down into the town. Vigo has some very old, interesting-looking buildings, but the things that fascinated us the most were the red escalators, there to carry visitors up through the narrow streets towards the park. There were no ‘down’ escalators, however, so we had to use the steps.

Once back in the harbour, we hung around a bit, not in any hurry to get back onto the ship. Ahead of us, we have 7 sea days before we arrive at our next destination, Barbados, in the Caribbean. That means a busy schedule between now and then, with lots of classes (two per day), and not a great deal of free time in between. So far, the rough seas have been tiring us out, but hopefully the worst of the weather is behind us, and things will start warming up a bit, so that we may be able to spend more time walking around the upper decks.
Barbados here we come…