Day 12 – Vigo, Spain

Friday July 7, 2017

We had a wonderful breakfast at the Hotel ARCE in Baiona and we were sorry thet we had to leave this nice town and especially the hotel. It would have been nice to stay here an extra day.

It was another cool day for our 23 km ( 14 mile ) hike from Baiona to Vigo.

We started by crossing the nearby riverbed on an old Roman-style bridge.

As usual, our paths took us through very different areas of the towns and countryside.

At one point we had to cross an interesting pedestrian bridge that wound back and forth across the highway at a traffic circle.

After a few kilometers we reached a marker indicating that there was 100 km ( 62 miles ) to our destination, the cathedral in Santiago.

We met some walkers along the trail who passed us on one of our uphill climbs.

We eventually caught up to a couple of women who had passed us earlier. They had stopped at a crossroads for a rest and they directed us to our path and the they took an alternate route.

We passed several houses in small towns along the way, many of which had dogs of varying sizes and numbers that took exception to us walking through the alleyways close to the house.

Kathy wasn’t aware that kiwi fruit grows on a vine until we saw some at one of the houses.

When we reached the outskirts of Vigo we could see from the distance that this was a large city with all of the same benefits and issues that are associated with a large city. Vigo is one of the larger cities in Spain with a population of 300,000 in the city and 500,000 with the surrounding areas. As with any large town, there are some abandoned areas, graffiti and industry in the town. I took this picture in one of the alleyways next to a large factory that was along the Camino path going into the town.

However, Vigo also has state of the art shops, restaurants and is a bustling town with several beautiful statues.