Return to Vigo.

This blogger is back in Galicia, briefly.

We’re here flat hunting, hoping to find somewhere to stay for the summer months without paying summer prices. So we are doing a round of estate agents, getting a look at places and trying to avoid the question of how long we plan to stay until a little later. We shall see.

We travelled over to Porto on Sunday evening, having the strange experience of Ryanair checking the weight and dimensions of everyone’s hand luggage before they got onto the plane. That’s the first time that’s happened! It didn’t stop the usual chaos of the scramble for space to stow your hand luggage once on board the plane. That would be too much to ask for. And some people ended up with theirs in the hold, rather defeating the object of travelling hand luggage only as far as I can see.

On arrival at Portugal we had to wait a good twenty minutes for a train to Porto centre and when it arrived had some anxiety about whether it would take us to the right place as it was heading to a different destination to the one we are used to. However, all was well and we got off at Trindade station without problems and trotted down the road to sign into the hotel we had booked into for the night, it being too late to catch a bus straight to Vigo. Ironically enough, we met a couple from Vigo while waiting in the Ryanair queue at Liverpool airport. They offered us a lift to Vigo but by then it was too late to change our plans at this end. So it goes.

Anyway, by the time we had checked into our hotel we were beginning to feel a cold beer calling and set out in search of a suitable hostelry. Not a single place to found in the vicinity of our hotel. A few expensive restaurants were open but little else. Perhaps if we had gone down to the tourist area down by the river it might have been different but we didn’t want to go that far.

So back to the hotel we went where my Phil turned his charm on the receptionist and she magically produced a couple of cold beers from someone’s minibar – our room didn’t have one. So it was a case of all’s well that ends well.

The next morning we woke up to blue sky and sunshine. What a wonderful sight! And it lasted through our bus journey to Vigo and into the evening as well. Very pleasant.

By Tuesday morning, though, the promised rain had arrived. Everyone, yes, everyone, has told us about the dry and mild winter they have had here, the driest in years and years. The rain was obviously just waiting for us to arrive. Still, you don’t come to Galicia expecting wall-to-wall sunshine. That’s part of its charm, or so they tell me.

Prices have gone up a little but the food is still as good and the people as friendly and helpful as ever. And so we wait for the helpful estate agents to get back to us and help us in our flat hunting. Progress reports later.