Even before leaving Brussels, a colleague had warned me to lower my expectations of Vigo, “It’s not an attractive city,” was his response to our travel plans. He’s from Seville so his baseline might be different to mine, but subsequently everything I read about Vigo reinforced this view. Spend a night if you must, but then get out of town as quickly as possible was the message. Albeit after only a couple of days in Vigo, it would be fair to say the city has received a bum rap.
Yes, parts of Galicia’s largest city and main port are aesthetically challenged, but that is not the whole story. By the time we left, we were debating whether Vigo or A Coruna would be our retirement plan. The waterfront by the harbour is pretty, the historic centre is filled with pleasant squares and is mostly pedestrianised, the buzz at night when people are out eating, drinking and making merry was fabulous. The food is excellent.
Even better, a short bus ride away were a clutch of fantastic city beaches. It is a powerful combination of all the things a city should be. Vigo is blessed with a beautiful setting, the city occupies the southern shore of a vast estuary. Viewed from the lofty heights of the Castelo do Castro, it is simply majestic. Once a vital 17th century fortress, the Castelo is now a park reached by a very steep path from the Old Town.
Looking down on Vigo from the Castelo, you get a real sense of the scale of the container port (it runs for about 5km down the coast), but Vigo is home to Europe’s largest fishing fleet as well. We descended to explore the car free historic centre. The main square is the long, thin Plaza Puerta del Sol. Parts of it are in need of some care, but it’s attractive and hosts the building where the mojito was invented (according to a tour guide I overheard).
Dive off the Plaza Puerta del Sol down any of the side streets and you’ll find yourself enmeshed in a warren of lanes leading you from small square to small square. It’s not a huge area, and you’ll soon end up in the square in front of the Cathedral of Santa María de Vigo. Rebuilt in 1585, after an English fleet led by Francis Drake attacked Vigo and burned the cathedral down, by Spanish standards it is simple and plain.
Around the square, and lining the streets of the old town, are numerous restaurants and bars. Nearby though is the Rúa da Pescadería, also known as the Street of Oysters. Fresh fish and shellfish is brought from the market next door and cooked to order. A short walk from here is the old passenger terminal and harbour, a place where the modern history of Galicia comes into sharp focus.
In front of the port building a man carrying a suitcase walks with determination, and maybe a hint of sorrow, etched on his face. Behind him a woman, his wife, cradles a new born baby while grandparents wave and an older child stands holding a forlorn looking teddy bear. This is Homenaje a la emigración, a sculpture that pays tribute to those Galicians who left the region seeking economic opportunity elsewhere.
More than a million people left between the mid-19th and mid-20th centuries, most headed to Argentina, Brazil and Cuba. As true then as it is today, it was mostly the men who left first, their families following when possible. These were “the widows of the living” according to Galician poet Rosalía de Castro. It is a tragic history, one repeated across Europe in those years, yet conveniently forgotten today.
There are several other sculptures dotted along the waterfront and in the parks behind, including a giant bronze swimmer, El Nadador, emerging from the ground at the edge of the Old Town. As the sun set we made our way back into the centre which was now busy with people enjoying a night out. The atmosphere was fun and friendly, and things didn’t wind down until the early hours.
