Weekend in Vigo
Spending a Weekend in Vigo, Spain | June 2026
After finishing the Camino de Portuguese, we had just under a week left in Europe before our scheduled flights back to the US. Our departure was from Lisbon, but instead of going right there, we decided to take our time on the journey South. We picked places based on where the public transit went and where we could get good hotel deals using points, not necessarily knowing what we were going to do there (or what we would be missing out on by not going to other places!) but knowing we would figure it out, as we always do. We hoped that our last week could strike a good balance between resting after our long pilgrimage, and still taking advantage of every day we had left on vacation.
We left Santiago by train on late Saturday afternoon, and traveled an hour and a half South to Vigo, Spain — a city on the same bay as Redondela, a town we had walked through on the Camino. Most of our train ride was spent with eyes glued to the views out the windows, pointing out anything that looked familiar from our walk. We stopped in some of the same towns and saw them from a new, rushed perspective. We felt sorry for the poor souls we saw out walking as the heat wave raged on, with a high of 100 degrees Fahrenheit. And after just an hour and a half of riding on the train, we had reversed the last week of walking that we had done.
The train arrived in Vigo, the station built into a large mall that we ended up walking through to exit. Talk about a good idea for bringing back malls! When we emerged from the building, we were delighted to find that it felt much cooler here — not just because evening was approaching, but also because here by the water the temps just weren’t as high! From here, we had about 1.5 kilometers to walk to reach our hotel. Since our hotel was right by the waterfront, much of our walk was going straight downhill. The city was much bigger than we expected, and most of the buildings we were passing looked like they were built in the Victorian style (which we later learned was because this city really took off in the early 1900s with the shipping industry).
We arrived at the hotel and got checked in, and settled into our room on the top floor with a beautiful water view. After resting, we set out to find dinner. While walking to our hotel, a local had come up to us and asked what brought us here, and was very welcoming and seemed pleased that we had randomly chosen to visit this city. She had told us that we needed to try octopus while we were here, and so we ended up at a seafood restaurant with the purpose of trying octopus. We had seen it advertised elsewhere, usually called something like “fair style octopus” or once translated as “octopus at the fair”, and were very curious. It turned out to be boiled tentacles and seasoned with salt and paprika and served on a plate, and toothpicks are typically the chosen method for eating it. We ordered a plate to split, and both tried it. It was initially pretty good, but after a few bites the texture of the suction cups started to turn me off, then I started thinking about how octopus are known as some of the most intelligent creatures and started to feel sad. We checked it off the list, no more eating octopus.
We walked around the waterfront some more, admiring the views of the mountains across the bay and all the boats in the harbor, then as the sun set we made our way back to the hotel for the evening.
The next day, we planned to take a long walking tour of the city, so after breakfast we set out on our long stroll along with sandwiches and pastries we had obtained from the breakfast. Our first stop was at the San Sebastián Castle, which we could barely make out from the waterfront up on the hill. As everything we wanted to see was inland, we would end up having to walk uphill quite a ways, but at least we knew that meant the end of our walk returning down to the waterfront would be easy. We walked through the quiet streets and admired the homes and the views we had out towards the water until we arrived at the castle.
Since this is Europe and there are castles everywhere, and since this one wasn’t anything grand or significant in the larger scale as far as these things go, there was no tour or admission, it was just simply castle walls on the hillside with homes and office buildings built around, the history simply preserved right here for anyone to walk up and enjoy. The best part was the beautiful views to the North of the bay and the mountains stretching across the horizon.
Next, we continued walking uphill to our next attraction, the Parque Monte do Castro. This is a fort that was built on the higher hill overlooking the whole city. We made our way up several staircases and to the top of the mountain where the fort sat. There is a road that goes up to the fort entrance, so it was much busier here with tour buses and vendors outside, but it was free and open for all to walk through, read the signs and take in the great views of the city. All of the signs were in Spanish so we could only sort of make out what they were saying, but we still took our time to walk all around and enjoy what we could see here.
After touring the fort, we sat outside on a bench and ate. We looked at the map for other places to visit, and felt like we were up for walking another 3km (on top of the 1.5 we had already walked to get here) to another park. And so we set off down the other side of the hill, heading further inland in the spirit of seeing as much of this city as we could by foot. We walked through city streets, admiring architecture and monuments when we came across them, all the way to the Parque de Castrelos. When we arrived, we sat down on a bench in the shade and watched people playing fetch with their dogs. When we were ready to continue, we made our way over to the Museo Quiñones de León — a Galician historical museum inside a palace with beautiful gardens outside. We were limited on what we could see since it was a Sunday afternoon and they were closing soon, so we walked through the exhibits that we could, which mostly featured archeological findings and Roman artifacts from the area. All of the signs were in Spanish which made it harder to understand, but we could at least tell what year they were estimating these objects were from. After that, we walked through the gardens behind the museum.
By this point, it was in the heat of the afternoon, and we were starting to feel tired after all our walking and exploring. We decided it was time to walk back to the hotel, but this time would take a different route back. We were close to where the coastal Camino trail cut through the city, so we followed that for a bit heading East, which was pleasant since most of it was following a creek and in the shade. We soon had to leave the trail behind though so that we could start heading North towards the waterfront and our hotel. Getting back up the hill in nearly full sun was a struggle, but we pushed through and thought about all the things we wanted to eat and reward ourselves with for making it through this hike. Once we reached the crest of the hill and started heading downhill, we found a grocery store that was open and ended up picking out what we wanted for dinner and as a treat for ourselves here, knowing that most restaurants were closed on Sundays.
Now with all these treats and a cold drink to split on the walk back, we were feeling great for the last stretch of our hike. We made it back to the hotel and took some time to rest and cool down in the AC. That evening, we decided to go for one last walk for our time in Vigo, this time heading West along the coast for an easy evening walk. Along the way, we came across a cultural fair that had people playing traditional Galician music complete with dancers and bagpipes, which was a fun way to wrap up our time in Spain for now. We thoroughly enjoyed our short time in this beautiful city and were so thankful to have found such a lovely place to escape the heat wave!
