Today we left Vigo for our walk to Arcade. Vigo has an exciting history, in 1585 and 1589, during an unsuccessful attack by the English counter-Armada, Francis Drake raided the city and temporarily occupied it, burning many buildings. In 1702, the Battle of Vigo Bay occurred, and in 1719, because a Spanish fleet which departed from Vigo attempted to invade Scotland in support of theJacobites the city was occupied for ten days by a British force. In 1808 the French Army annexed Spain to the Napoleonic Empire, although Vigo remained unconquered until January, 1809. Vigo was also the first city of Europe to be freed from French rule, in what is annually celebrated on March 28 as the Reconquista.
The route out of Vigo was a long, and fairly steep, climb up along a main road until we turned off this and started climbing higher into the hills and villages above Vigo. As we walked higher we could see a small peninsula with Monte da Guía, a restored 16th century hermitage, overlooking its surroundings.
The walking was quite pleasant at this stage, the (first) long climb was over and we could enjoy the views of the Bay of Vigo. There were hundreds of bateas which are rafts for cultivating typical Galician bivalve molluscs. The Galician mussel reaches commercial size (70-95 mm) in approximately 17 months, while in other producing countries growth is much slower: mussels in the rest of Europe need 2 to 6 times as long to reach this size. As well as mussels, scallops and oysters are grown on these bateas.
Our route continued through a mixture of villages, where we saw the distant bay and the Ponte de Rande which spans Vigo Ria across the Rande Strait, linking the municipalities of Redondela and Moaña, and woodland paths.
We then walked through Redondela and past the Convento de Vilavella (Convent of Old Town), also known as Conxunto de Vilavella (Ensemble of Old Town), a complex of buildings and monuments dating from the 16th century when a convent, church, and a cruceiro (stone cross) were built. Redondela is the town where the main Portuguese Camino route joins with the Coastal route.
We then encountered our second steep climbs for us back up into the eucalyptus woodlands. We hadn’t seen the sun all day but the air was warm enough to keep us sweating a lot, so when the rain came it was nice and cooling. Luckily as the trees sheltered us somewhat we didn’t get soaked and then rain had stopped by the time we got to Arcade. The somewhat rural nature of our journey today meant we didn’t get the opportunity to stop for coffee and cake earlier so we stopped in the first cafe we came to in Arcade as it was too early for our hotel checkin.
After checking in, and a quick lunch, we strolled into the town to check out dinner options. Safe to say that Arcade is not a bustling anything but at least had a couple of interesting options down by the marina.
Tomorrow we will walk to Pontevedra.
