Things to see.

This morning I looked out from the balcony of the new Vigo residence and saw one of the huge cruise ships arriving. Coming into the ría, it looked vaguely unreal, rather as though someone had photo-shopped a massive ship onto a picture of the water. 

I always knew these boats were huge but seeing them from the height of Calle Aragón, where our new flat is located, I was astounded at its size, relative to the buildings in the port area. The monstrously ugly hotel down near A Laxe shopping centre is at least 10 storeys high and it is just dwarfed by this floating community. 

Looking out from the balcony, you can also see the great pit where the old train station used to be and where the AVE, super-fast train, will eventually have its own station at some time in the next few years, funds permitting. No-one seems to know exactly when that will be but lots of people spend time leaning on the fence watching the lorries and construction vehicles trundle to and fro and the pile-drivers driving piles; at least, I assume that’s what pile-drivers do. 

We have barely stopped to look as we have gone past the building site as we have been too busy rushing around collecting items from the old bijou residence and buying things that we need for the new place. One of the things we acquired was a small electric kettle from the nearby Carrefour in their “básico” range. When we got it home and opened it we were a little puzzled. There was the kettle but no base with cable and plug to make it work. Was this why it was so cheap? Bargain-price kettle, but then you have to go and pay an extortionate amount for the essential parts to make it work? So back we went to Carrefour. It’s a good job it’s just a short walk down the road. 

At the “atención al cliente” desk we explained the problem to the charming young lady assistant. She examined the kettle, showed it to her colleague and had a little discussion about what was missing, suggesting that maybe she had never actually seen such a kettle before. Eventually she phoned for someone from the electrical goods department to come and have a look. The kettle expert arrived, took one look at it, opened up the lid and showed us the missing bit, tucked away inside. How foolish we felt! It never even occurred to us that the base and cable could FIT in the space. How we all laughed! All in all, a good bonding exercise with the customer service desk employees. 

Our next venture was a bit of flat-pack furniture building. On opening the package we discovered a set of instructions inside. I repeat, INSIDE. The first instruction said, “Before opening, make sure the package is horizontal.” A bit late for that instruction, I thought! Fortunately we had put the package flat on the floor so we had no untoward consequences. 

Another quest has been to find a WIFI cafe within short walking distance of the flat. None of the cafes and bars at this end of Calle Aragón seem to have heard of the advantages of having WIFI to attract customers. Maybe everyone here has their own internet connection. So we have had to walk down to Travesía de Vigo, the almost parallel street down the hill from here, still only about 10 minutes walk away. 

The first we tried was the Alepo, where the beer was not very good and the tapas rather rudimentary. The atmosphere and decor were also a little old fashioned. Then the barman/owner told us, quite proudly it seemed to me, that he has an ancient clientele. The old gentleman who had just left, helped along by someone who might have been his granddaughter, or possibly his great granddaughter, was 92. And that other gentleman, who had a special chair provided for him, a rather more supportive one with arm-rests, was 86. Maybe all these aged customers are all internet users, Spanish silver-surfers! Mind you the internet connection was quite slow, perhaps suited to the age of the ancient users!

 Our second port of call, the Failde, had better beer and better tapas, as well as a faster connection (although it did slow down when a second computer-user started up) but had a covered smoking area just outside the entrance. This made it hard to get away from the annoying drift of tobacco smoke into the interior. Our third try was El Cairo; here everything was fine, apart from the very noisy card school going on in one corner. So, no perfect place so far. We are missing the Cuchufleta, round the corner from the bijou residence, and the Nuevo Derby on Calle Urzáiz, where the staff had come to know us and we had cheerful chats about all kinds of world affairs, but it’s rather a long trek from here to either of those places. 

 On our travels, we have been through bits of Vigo we have not seen before. It’s been interesting. In between the two major streets Travesía de Vigo and Calle Aragón, two broad, busy streets lined with blocks of flats and loads of shops and cafes, there is quite a deep valley. Down in the valley is a reminder of what the area must have been like before the building development started and presumably before the two major thoroughfares went through the place. It’s an area of small, mostly two-storey houses, usually with gardens and often with allotments where people obviously still grow vegetables. Narrow alleyways connect one part to another and steep roads lead to even steeper sets of steps taking you up to Calle Aragón. 

Then there is a similar area behind Calle Aragón. This is San Xoan, built around the Monte de San Xoan, an area I’ve been exploring to try to find a route for my morning run. (Once again, it’s rather a long way from here to my previous perfect venue, the Castro Park.) San Xoan is another collection of small houses with gardens and vegetable plots. 

According to the map there is a network of little roads and alleys which interconnect. In practice, you go down one of these little alleyways and discover that it’s blocked off by a gate at the end; maybe only local people are allowed through. 

This is the semi-rural edge of Vigo and it’s rather like taking a step back in time to a quieter age, before motorways and huge cruise ships existed.