Some things explained.

Well, some of yesterday’s noise was explained by this being the weekend of the Teis festival. It’s that time of year when everywhere has a fiesta. That may not have explained the cannon fire in the early morning, or the quantity of churchy-singing that went on, but it did explain the flashing lights and “music’ if you can call it that, up at A Guía until the small hours of the morning. I realised that this was imminent when we walked up to A Guía during the week and saw canvas erections going up.

I fail to understand the appeal of such fiestas and travelling fairs. Pontevedra puts on a fairground, reminiscent of the sort of thing that used to appear at the bottom of our road back in the 1950s and 1960s, during their Semana Grande, coming up soon. Once we stayed in a hotel in Santiago de Compostela, just on the edge of the old quarter, close to the Alameda, where they had a similar fiesta fairground going on, starting at 11.00pm and ending when the punters decided to go home to bed.

Some people regard such things as a bit of picturesque local colour. As for me, I regard that as a bit tacky. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love an outdoor concert. During Pontevedra’s Semana Grande I enjoy the rackety marching bands that go around the streets. And I really adore the dance troupes who set up and perform in the squares, all in their national dress. I also enjoy brass bands and good Morris dancing in the UK. But tacky music and dodgy funfairs really do my head in, as a student of mine was wont to say!

This morning we decided to go for a walk up to the Castro once again before it grew too hot and sticky to go anywhere. There were rather a lot of people up there. A cruise boat was in port, the first I have seen in ages. Two tourist buses labelled Tours4Cruises had obviously brought a mass of people up the hill. While they waited the drivers kept their engines running, thus counteracting the green-lung effect of the Castro park, but that is a different matter. It was difficult to find a table in the Castro cafe when we wanted to stop for a refresco.

What’s more, I had to wait for the right moment to take a picture of the fountain without complete strangers appearing on my carefully composed shot. Checking the photo as I sipped mineral water in the Castro cafe, when we eventually found a table in the shade, I noticed that my phone had located it in the “Parque Charlie Rivel”. I was gobsmacked. Never before had I heard it called by that name. So, inevitably, I googled it.

Charlie Rivel was a famous Catalan clown. So surely if there was to be a Parque Charlie Rivel it should be in Barcelona, not Vigo. I investigated further and discovered that back in 1983 the then mayor of Vigo, one Manuel Soto, named the then new children’s play area at the Castro “Parque Charlie Rivel”. I can’t say I have even seen the name of the children’s playground but Google maps now refers to the whole Castro park by that name! Visitors to the city will ask, “Where is the famous landmark, the Parque Charlie Rivel?” They might even ask it in Spanish. Most vigueses will reply with a shrug of the shoulders and perhaps say, “¡Ni puta idea!” - “No bloody idea!”

It’s all the fault of Google Maps!

Which just shows that Google does not have all the answers and sometimes has the wrong information!