A few statistics.

Quite early this morning I was woken by the sound of a ship’s hooter. I say quite early but I suppose everything is relative. It was before eight o’ clock anyway, before I had intended to be awake. Not long after that I did get up; I opened the blinds and looked out towards the port. There it was, another cruise liner. 

Yesterday’s cruise liner, which arrived at least an hour later in the day, didn’t make so much noise on arrival but then it was about twice as big so no-one could even pretend they hadn’t seen it coming in. I could see it when it was still out by the Islas Cíes. 

By now the however many thousand passengers will be well on their way to their next destination. Most will have spent the day on visits to Santiago or Pontevedra. A lot will have been wandering the shopping streets of Vigo. Judging by the number of them I see with bags of stuff they have bought, they must need an extra suitcase to get everything home, especially if they shop in every port. 

I wonder how many of them would have visited Vigo if they had not come on a cruise. Do their short stops at places like La Coruña and Vigo, with optional excursions to other places, encourage them to come back again and explore Galicia a little more? Do they wonder what the Islas Cíes are like to visit as their boat goes steaming past? 

According to a recent survey I read about in Faro de Vigo, two out of three tourists who visit Vigo do come back again. What they come for is the “medio natural” and the “gastronomía” apparently. Well, yes, there are some nice green places and you can eat well. In the case of people off cruise liners, however, I suspect it’s because this is where the boat stops for half a day. Am I being too cynical there? 

 The number of people arriving in Vigo by boat exceeds those who arrive by plane or bus according to that survey. That’s hardly surprising when you look at the size of the boats. The vast majority, 56% come by car, despite the parking difficulties. Quite a lot of French people come and a fair number of Italians but not as many Portuguese as you might expect, at least not as many as the survey people expected. But then, they might want to go somewhere that isn’t quite so much like their own country. The biggest group of foreign visitors are the British. Has that got anything to do with the thousands who get off the cruise liners? I wonder. 

One unfortunate fact revealed by this survey is that we are too old to fit the age profile of visitors to the ciudad olívica, aka Vigo. The average visitor is in the 35 to 54 bracket. Still, looking at it positively, we’re just non-conformist. 

And finally, here are some photos of one of the big boats leaving the other day, getting a little close to the little ferryboats that chug between Vigo and Cangas and Moaña. 

 I don’t think I would like to be the ferryboat pilot.