SCandinavian Cruises - 2026
Sunday 31 May'26 - Vigo (Spain)
Today was Vigo, a place I had never heard of. As we headed into the Bay of Vigo, there were literally hundreds of what I thought were oyster farms but in reality, they were mussels. Now the bay is very protected. The next photo shows the harbour with what looks like a land mass in the top left to right but in reality is 3 islands, with the centre and right island joined by a sand isthmus (look it up). We went to breakfast as we moved towards the dock and then were back into the room, only 14 minutes into the Raiders v Cowboys game. Gotta love VPN and streaming services!!!
Being a Spanish town, but directly in line vertically with Portugal, it caused a little problem with the time on devices connected to the net/mobile networks as Spain only has one time zone, an hour ahead of Portugal. Once that was sorted, life became a little easier.. We had organised a 2 hr Cultural and Old Town guided tour and we had to meet our guide under the "Manfish" sculpture in Praza Porta do Sol, about 10 minutes walk from the dock. Our guide, Jose Manuel (tried to convince us he was Spanish...), explained the sculpture and its significance. Vigo was founded back in the Roman era as a "seaside village with fish" and is still the centre of Spanish fishing today. The sculpture has the head pointing to the sea and the tail to the mountains.
Like so much of Europe, it has a problem with maintaining the old architecture with new buildings and only in the last 10 years have laws been passed to protect the heritage. The walk began and 1st point of interest was the Opera House. We then headed towards a beautiful park. Now, once again, like so many old towns throughout Europe, Vigo had a city wall but as the town needed to expand , the wall was demolished and used as landfill. The ground we were standing on, to take pictures of the park, was originally the shoreline.
Now, before going any further, you will note very little amounts of people out and about. Well it is Sunday, the "Day of God" and nothing much happens until after 1300. In fact, many shops were not open at all. We then went to an area that has remains of the old wall as not many parts of the wall remain. Next port of call, was the Cathedral. Now, during one the many wars they encountered, Sir Francis Drake was the "scoundrel" on this occasion, the Cathedral was burnt to the ground, but locals saved as much of the inside as they could and the church was rebuilt. In the bottom left hand corner, you can see an olive tree, which was the only one left after the attack and now holds pride of place. The irony is that many years later, a cutting was made and planted in an expansion area and has thrived. Another quirky thing is that Captain Jack Sparrow (yes, that one) was a resident of the town for many years and his favourite "frequent" is just a stone's throw away from the cathedral. We then walked to the tallest building ever built in the old town, 5 storeys. At that point in history, unheard of!