Blogs from Vigo, Galicia, Spain, Europe
Cruises, Keys, Kisses and a Pretty Deep Harbour.
Published: May 10th 2012Europe » Spain » Galicia » Vigo
May 10th 2012
One of the joys of living in a relatively popular, foreign city is the snobby, ridiculous smugness you feel when you see tourists, who are obviously tourists, wandering round, lost, sunburnt and a bit flustered. Perhaps smugness is the wrong word as it comes from the “I recognise that feeling – thank God it’s not me again” school of emotions, so maybe relief laced with sympathy is a better way to describe it. Either way, there is something kind of fun about it all. Going past the harbour (a particularly deep harbour for this part of the world, so I’m told, impressed huh?) and seeing a cruise ship there means that there’s always a couple of mood-lightening treats around the corner. By way of an aside, the whole cruise thing is something I have never really ... read more
Football, Names, The Colour Pink And A Bit More Football
Published: March 18th 2012Europe » Spain » Galicia » Vigo
March 18th 2012
Picking a foreign football team to support is always a bit weird. If you’ve followed football, either through a team or just the game in general for long enough, you will have certain pre-conceptions and fixed ideas about particular clubs which are as illogical and ridiculous as the ideas people have about people’s names – the ones based on past experiences where you have the unshakeable belief that all men called Jamie are loud and rude, whereas James’ are kind and Lucy’s are fun, and irrespective of how many times you are proved wrong with these, you never change your thoughts. The football team thing is the same. Often based on one half-true newspaper story, or a 2 minute clip of an obscure cup game, you will take against a team about whom you have no ... read more
Beaches, Kids, Smiles and Young People’s Music
Published: March 10th 2012Europe » Spain » Galicia » Vigo
March 10th 2012
About an hour’s walk from my flat, there is a beach called Samil, maybe it is the fact that since I left Liverpool 10 years ago, I haven’t lived near a beach – Leeds, San Jose, Xiangfan and Budapest all being decidedly inland – but as beaches go, it’s a damn good one. White sand, clear blue water, little quiet inlets and bays and lots of rocks just waiting to be climbed on. The islands opposite, accessible only by boat and only in the summer, are called The Cíes Islands and a few years ago they were voted the most beautiful beaches in the world – although by whom is something I’m not sure about as it may have been The Cíes Islands tourist board for all I know. Of course, it’s not all sunshine and ... read more
March 1st 2012
The first time I went to Sheffield, I remember thinking that the city was built on some kind of giant see-saw because it felt like everywhere we walked, we were going uphill. In my first few days here, I had the same feeling. There is no such thing as a flat, level street in Vigo, everything seems to resemble either a mountain that you need a Sherpa and boots to try and get up, or a slide where you have to really try to stop yourself from gathering momentum so you don’t run into the road at the bottom. Actually, this set up is a surprisingly good thing for anyone like me with no sense of direction at all. All you have to know is that downhill takes you to the sea, and once you know ... read more
Suitcases, Footballers, Isolationism and Chorizo
Published: February 21st 2012Europe » Spain » Galicia » Vigo
February 21st 2012
When getting to somewhere new I always have a tendency to compare my arrival with my arrivals in the places before it, almost as a way of getting a handle on things immediately and trying to get a feeling of comfortability and familiarity straightaway. Getting to Vigo airport was no different. The jet-lag, the nerves and the crying baby on the plane were all reminiscent of the flights to Costa Rica, China and Budapest, which provided me with some comfort. What was different, however, was that here, I was accompanied on the flight by the entire Celta Vigo squad (the local football team) who then proceeded to chat to kids who were staring in awe before loading all of their gear up themselves and leaving – difficult to imagine this happening in England somehow. It was ... read more
January 14th 2012
We had just finished our wonderful Christmas with Gogue and family and were excited to get to Portugal but we decided to make a quick overnight pit stop in Vigo. Vigo is the largest city in Galicia and it´s right on the coast. It´s also home to the newspaper, Faro de Vigo, which publishes Gogue´s comic strip Floreano. We left O Grove late morning and were in Vigo by early afternoon where we checked into a great hotel with a view of the water. The room had a giant comfortable bed and some nice amenities but we had little time planned for the city so we had to get out the door and explore, explore, explore! We’d gotten some advice from Gogue before we left O Grove about what to visit. Their son, Anxo, happens to ... read more
September 8th 2011
This morning we headed into port at Vigo, Spain. It was really exciting, especially as the sun was shining (this was the first time it was hot on this holiday) and then we saw loads of dolphins swimming next to the ship! It was brilliant. Mummy and daddy had seen wild dolphins before but this was a first for me :-) Once we were off the ship, mummy and daddy took me on a really long walk today towards a beach. It went past lots of fish markets so was very smelly and not very nice. Then just before we got to the beach (about an hours walk) daddy got talking to a local who said we were best to get a bus to a different beach! So we went to Samil beach instead. It only ... read more
October 15th 2010
Hi all Well we've been on the road now for 81 days and covered over 2700 miles and loved nearly all of it, you'll see from this blog that northern Spain gave us a few problems. We had intended to spend a lot longer here but the lack of open sites and ADS's meant that we were very limited on where we could go, but we made the most of it as you'll see. Monday 27th September The first things that struck me as we crossed the border into Spain (although there isn't any visible border these days) was the obvious changes in building appearance and shop names, but it was the writing on the road signs that changed dramatically, these weren't written in Spanish they were in Basque, we were now in the Euskadi region ... read more
October 14th 2010
Day 1 Boarding Queen Elizabeth for her Maiden Cruise. It turned out to be a good idea to relax at the nearby Hotel with a coffee until close to sailing time. As we were one of the last to turn up we avoided the queues and were whisked straight on board by they friendly greeters (Alex was getting a little concerned about arriving so close to boarding time, within 5 minutes, Ron of course was unconcerned) Day 2 At Sea Our first full day as sea was spent exploring the ship and eating delicious food. Alex found the library and checked out two books to read, Ron was pleased to win the trivia competition in a team with our friends Susan, Chris, Gale & Ian. We finished the night by winning another voucher for being brave ... read more
August 27th 2009
The Three Rias we visited - Muros, Pontevedra and Vigo So many people we had spoken to told us how beautiful the Rias of north west Spain were. In all honesty, we had no idea of what to expect in real terms but essentially they are like big, long and wide areas of water, a bit like Pittwater near Sydney in some ways. They have towns and villages dotting the coastline in some of them and in others such as Ria de Vigo, the city of Vigo takes up a big chunk of the coast. Our first port of call was of course Portosin in the Ria de Muros where we sailed to from La Coruna. Portosin is a small seaside town with a pretty active fishing fleet. The marina is not all that large and ... read more
