Day 7 – Vigo

We both slept through the night… and that was a good thing. Janet rose early in the dark and was in the living room reading. Tom woke up an hour later as the sun was rising to a view that surprised him and had escaped Janet’s awareness. It was a massive ship just a couple hundred yards away.

Today, we would head to a small seaside town south of Vigo and not far from Portugal named Baiona. We are to meet someone that has had a major part of our married life. It is a long story, but we will try to capture it quickly.

Off Ramp: Over thirty years ago, Tom returned home from a work trip in California raving about a bottle of wine he enjoyed and had a second bottle of this wine in his carry on. (Remember those days??). We drank that bottle on our following anniversary and did so on every anniversary for many years to come. The winery was sold and the winemaker went on to other projects, resurfacing with a new wine label on a very small scale a few years later. Tom happened to bump into this new limited offering, once again on a work trip. On a whim Tom emailed the winemaker and he responded. Since then, the two of them have communicated electronically and during COVID the winemaker was nice enough to do a private zoom tasting for us and few friends. He is now retired and living part time in Baiona with hopes of a permanent status.

We got the big blue beast out of the underground parking lot and headed southwest to Baiona. The drive was lovely as the glimpse of the sea would appear and disappear as we drew closer to the town. Driving has been no problem, but in a big car parking can be very challenging. Once again, we headed directly to the public lot. This lot differed from all others! It was light, open, and spacious – Yippee! Tom, being ambidextrous and dyslexic, tends to do things backwards and immediately turned the wrong way into the lot. Correcting his mistake immediately, he began to backup looking at the rear-view camera. The wall was getting closer when they heard a loud crash. The camera was looking low on the wall and did not see the fire extinguisher box much higher. No damage to the box – our taillight was broken.

That would make the score - Fire Extinguisher 1, the Blue Beast 0! The first pitch – Tom rolls down the hill, Strike One, followed by a curve ball strike from the scallops, Strike Two! Finally, the crack of the taillight and Tom has struck out. Oh well, the good news… The attendant was extremely helpful and saw it all go down. A person entering the garage owned a hotel in Baiona and spoke perfect English and did all the translating required. We called Enterprise and they said no problem, today is a holiday, bring the car tomorrow and we give you a new one. Seventeen dollars a day for insurance rapidly became an excellent investment!

Exiting the garage to a beautiful day with blue skies things were already looking up. The sea was just yards meters away and the views seemed infinite.

Today we would be meeting our friend for La Comida, a large lunch between 2 and 3 in the afternoon. We arrived early so we could walk around the town and explore this seaside town. It only took moments to see why one would choose this place to become an expat. The narrow streets were a maze of restaurants and shops. Today was a National Holiday in Spain and the town was slow to rise.

The holiday is called National Day of Spain and celebrates the legacy of Spain and their explorations in years gone by. It is celebrated on the day Columbus made the discovery of the Americas. Baiona is the location that la Pinta returned from her voyage to the new world in March of 1493. The Niña would arrive in Lisbon later in the month. The crew of this ship was the first to announce this achievement. In the harbor there is replica of the la Pinta that one can tour.

We recently made a transatlantic crossing on a much larger ship… Not sure we would want to do it on la Niña. We continued our walk-through history aided by signs in the square that highlighted events and people of the glory days of Spain.

We stopped in a small church on a side street and almost busted at laughing. Both of us had a smile on our face when walked out. There on the wall was statue of Santiago (aka St James) looking down at us. We have seen so many people making a long hard pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago that he had done two thousand years ago. 

Then it his us… Santiago was on a horse… he did not walk! It is a little silly now, but we enjoyed the laugh.

The journey continued as we walked back to the harbor and up the hill to Monterreal Castle.

This imposing looking fort was started in the 12th century and was not completed until the 16th century.

It is now a Parador which the government sponsors mostly in historic sites. It offered some spectacular views from it’s walls. It would be hard for an invading ship to slip past these guns.

The time for La Comida had arrived and we headed to meet our friend in a designated park. Since we have never met in person, the hope was two Americans would be easy to spot. It did not take long before the man we had only known through emails and zoom introduced himself. An encounter like this could be awkward, but it was not. We casually strolled to a restaurant he had chosen while engaged in conversation. As one would expect the wine and the food were wonderful, but the stories, past and present, were the highlight.

We started our lunch with what Tom is now calling – shrimp to die for! Perfectly fried with a light crust, these babies were great with a white blend of Albariño, Treixadura, Lado, and Torrontés from Ribeiro.

The next thing that arrived from the kitchen was a classic Galician rice dish. Assured that there were no vieiras or zamburinas in the dish, we dug in. Full of flavor and cooked to perfection, we enjoyed a bottle Godello, one of our favorites. This particular wine is from the Monterrei region, but Godello is a very popular grape in Galicia. There are so many wonderful wines to try from this part of the world.

With dinner finished, a walk was in order! We headed back to the sea just to take in the beauty. The cruise ship that startled us this morning could been seen on the horizon leaving Vigo.

Posing for a quick shot with this gorgeous background, our day in Baiona was coming to an end.

We said our goodbyes and promised to keep in touch. It was just a wonderful afternoon. Taking a slight detour, we drove to the top of the hill in Baiona to check out the view. I think it would be easy to get used to looking out over this town.

In the morning the Blue Beast with a broken taillight will be replaced. He has been good to us, but he is just too big for this country. I sure do miss my Fiat 500! We saw this car at the Parador earlier in the day… wonder if Enterprise has any of these on lot. 😉

It was not long after we got back to Vigo, that the golden hour had arrived. A beautiful day, great food, and meeting some one that from a far has been part of our lives for so long made for a perfect day. The sunset just added the exclamation point.

Tomorrow, we leave Vigo and head inland to a region known as the Ribeira Sacra. It is a place that Tom has wanted to see since he discovered Mencía and learned about a term called Heroic Viticulture.