Brian Hart
Transatlantic Crossing Day 6

england · spain · portugal · bermuda

Transatlantic Crossing Day 6

Vigo Spain

· 7 mins read

  • Start of day: Vigo, Spain
  • End of day: At sea

Good morning from Spain! If you’d asked me at the beginning of 2026 how many times I thought I’d visit Spain and Portugal that year, the answer would not have been three. And all three trips happened somewhat spontaneously, with little time to properly prepare – learning travel-sized doses of Castilian and Portuguese and brushing up on history, for two.

I’m grateful for these experiences, as Spain has rocketed to the top of my list of places to visit more in retirement.

While Vigo is not one of the major Iberian cruise ports, I still had an enjoyable day here. It was my second visit to Galicia, after visiting La Coruña in August.

First off, it’s hilly. So much so that they have escalators and moving sidewalks in places:

An outdoor escalator climbing a steep street in central Vigo, enclosed in a stainless-steel frame with a red angled canopy, running beside a broad flight of granite stairs and ornate stone building facades. A pigeon stands on the pavement in the foreground

The naval power on display was a little intimidating…

Vigo's waterfront seen from the ship, with a replica wooden galleon flying flags moored beside two small traditional sailing boats in front of the long, low cruise terminal building. Behind them, the city climbs the hillside in tiers of white and pastel apartment blocks with red tile roofs, construction cranes, and a busy road with buses along the port

… but I decided to take my chances ashore anyway.

A bronze statue of a man in a suit carrying a suitcase, mid-stride, on the broad stone promenade along Vigo's waterfront, with a row of tall palm trees, sailboat masts in the marina, and silhouette cutouts of figures in long coats in the background. Tourists in shorts and t-shirts walk along the promenade under a mottled grey-and-blue sky

I didn’t have much of a plan for the day. I’m always up for an uphill walk or a fortress, though, and Spain has them in spades. For today I wandered my way up to Castelo do Castro; my fitness tracker showed this as a ~450 ft vertical ascent from the ship. The views were well worth the effort.

View from the O Castro park hillside in Vigo, looking past a gnarled umbrella pine over a railing and evergreen trees to a large white cruise ship berthed at the port below, its hull lettering partly visible, with the blue ría and the hills and towns of the far shore under a hazy sky

A sloping green lawn in Vigo's O Castro park shaded by tall cedars and pines, with a stone boulder in the grass and the base of the castle's angled stone wall at the right. The bay and a pale sky show through the trunks in the distance

An interpretive sign at the Castelo do Castro in Vigo headed 'O Castelo do Penso e a Ermida de Nosa Señora de O Castro,' with a historical map of the town, an aerial photograph of the star-shaped fortress, period portraits, and an illustration of a stone tower, set in front of a dry pond and rock garden

The grassy, landscaped top of the Castelo do Castro in Vigo, with a curving gravel path around a lawn, low stone ramparts and a small stone sentry box at the edge, and a visitor walking toward the parapet. The ría of Vigo and the mountains on the far side lie beyond under a broad sky of streaky white clouds

A low stone monument inside the Castelo do Castro in Vigo with large dark metal letters reading '1719 ASEDIO,' commemorating the siege, in front of a gravel courtyard enclosed by rough stone walls with an arched doorway, a cedar tree beyond, and a mottled sky overhead

A gravel path descending through O Castro park in Vigo under the long spreading branches of a cedar, with the white cruise ship and port buildings visible below and the ría and far hills beyond under an overcast sky

Looking down a steep, worn stone stairway with a metal handrail zigzagging through the wooded lower slope of O Castro park in Vigo, the dirt banks carpeted with fallen brown plane leaves between tall dark tree trunks. At the bottom, the stairs meet a street lined with bollards, a white delivery van, and a pale apartment block with graffiti on its shuttered ground floor and a 'Se Vende' sign

I took the long way back to the ship, wandering one of the main market streets.

A black hanging sign in gold script reading 'Cheers - Copas & Beer' with an Estrella Galicia logo, mounted on a grey granite apartment building in Vigo above a glass doorway. A graffiti-tagged roller shutter and a 'Vende - Galicia Capital' for-sale sign with a phone number are on the left, and the sidewalk runs downhill past a 'Discos, Libros, Outlet de Camisetas' sandwich board toward a street with parked cars under an overcast sky

A shop window in Vigo stacked with long slabs of handmade turrón on lit shelves, in white nougat studded with almonds and hazelnuts and in dark and milk chocolate topped with nuts and candied fruit, each labeled 'Turrón Artesano - Hecho a Mano' with its flavor. The glass reflects the ornate stone facade of a building across the street, and a planter of deep red skimmia buds fills the bottom of the frame

A street poster in Vigo for 'Im-Pulse Pink Floyd Tribute 2026' with the Dark Side of the Moon prism logo, listing shows on 24 Octubre 21:00h in Lugo at the Auditorio Gustavo Freire and 25 Octubre 20:00h in Vigo at Teatro A Fundación, pasted over a larger blue-and-white AFG photography exhibition poster