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Islas Cies to Vigo and
Baiona
From the main
island of Islas Cies we went up the Ria de Vigo to Moaña (pronounced Mewanya)
rather than to the city of Vigo with its extremely busy harbour and large
marinas and offering little scope for anchoring, which is what we prefer. Moaña
provided masses of anchorage space immediately beside the mooring buoys behind
the harbour wall with a 5 minute row into the town and a ferry across to Vigo on
the hour. We were the only yacht there.
 
Apart from
this excellent anchorage, a fabulous plants and food market with fish galore and
the regular ferry to Vigo, Moaña is a very ordinary small suburban town with a
couple of beaches but they do have rather interesting rowing events. This boat
was crewed by 13 rowers and a cox!
We spent two
perfectly still nights and were able to take the ferry into Vigo and delve into
city life for a change but with a quick escape when we wanted
it.
There were multistory cruise liners moored in Vigo as we
entered the harbour by ferry.
 
Leaflets
are given out at the port and in the streets advertising various city
attractions but also for C&A which has two quite large stores here, one in
the major shopping area of Principe Street. We went to the tourist office to get
a map and there plonk in the centre and again on the outskirts are the C&A
symbols along with the other local attractions. We were quite amused by this,
does C&A still exist in UK we wondered? There was nothing for it but to go
to C&A – it was not a lovely experience but we bought a couple of
T-shirts.
 
Built on a
steep hillside, as usual with the towns on this coast, we went up, up the
slopes, steps, slopes and more steps to get to some steep steps which reached
the castle and gardens at the peak of the city. The views of the harbour, the
bay and off lying islands were wonderful and well worth the effort, although
with 90º pouring out of the sky we were so hot we wanted to jump into one of the
fountains which, of course, we couldn't do. The considerate Galicians do have
taps everywhere though and when we got down the first set of steps a fellow
castle-visitor was undertaking full ablutions at the tap on the
pavement.
Vigo has some
large, less than charming, sculpture along with some more ancient statuary,
plenty of wide streets in the city centre and an old (vieja) sector where the
narrow streets are being completely repaved as the are putting in new sewers and
drains. There was plenty of noise and dusty road works so we didn't really get
the best of Vigo. We found only one street lined with oyster sellers for which
Vigo has and reputation, the café culture, however, is thriving despite the road
works and when all is finished, and the street food traders are back, Vigo is
going to look great. We decided one day was enough and will wait until Lisbon
for a further city dip.
We went ashore
in Moana in the evening as there seemed to be a lot going on. We just missed a
rather drunken crowd watching a local band playing what we assumed were
traditional songs. However, we were just in time to watch a Spanish Edith
Piaf belt out some songs accompanied by herself on guitar and an accordion
player. She was very good and very well received but she didn't start until 11
pm so we had to give up after the first 6 or 7 songs.
On to Baiona
the next day. This was one of the places we visited 28 years ago, anchoring then
in a large bay beside the castle. Since then the bay has been filled by marinas
and the quaint old streets overtaken by the tourist industry. Our main memories
this time will be of a great sea food paella and another concert, this time by
the Male Voice Choir of Baiona! They were sort of a cross between the
Sheringham shanty men and a Welsh male voice choir. We think they were singing
songs of the sea ...but who knows they could have been rugby songs for all
we know!
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