Some information about Vigo

On October 10, 1997, I left Italy to go to Vigo, as a winning student of the Socrates/Erasmus scholarship. I stayed there for nine months, and the experience was totally positive. I've decided thus to give some advice to whom has to go there, in order for him/her to know better and earlier whom to contact, what to do and so on.

Vigo is situated in the Atlantic Ocean, at about 40 kilometers from the Portuguese border. To reach it, there are a lot of means: by bus, by train or by plane. A good idea is to pass for Portugal (landing in Oporto) and, from there, to catch the train to Vigo using the Portuguese Railways (Caminhos de Ferro), which takes about 4 hours for 200 kilometers. Of course, there are direct routes, as Vigo has got an airport (of just one lane); in the same region, Galicia, there are two good airports: one in Santiago de Compostela, one hour far from Vigo, and one in A Coruña, almost 2h30 far from it. Both cities are connected by the Spanish Railways, RENFE (REd Nacional de Ferrocarriles Españoles).

Galicia is an autonomic region, thus it has its own local laws, its parliament (the Xunta de Galicia), its language, the galician (galego). It is a mixture of Portuguese and Spanish, and there are three versions: one, very similar to the Portuguese, one very next to the true Spanish, and another one, really tough, spoken above all in the little towns. Not a long time ago, the galego normativo was born, and it is now the official written language of the region; it encloses all the main characteristics of the above mentioned three languages. Not all people speak galego, especially in Vigo, due to the big amount of foreign students; going up north, though, things change. On the other side, many written things (directions, schedules, ads and so on) are in galician and one must get accustomed to that. Anyway, at last one learns another language, and gets ready for Portuguese! Vigo, to tell the truth, isn't that interesting. This city belongs to the province of Pontevedra, but it is much more important than the latter due to its harbour, the most important of Spain. It has about 300.000 inhabitants, and it grew in the 70's starting from a fishers' village. Thus, it has no "history", it's just a modern city with a lot of houses, skyscrapers, and a lot of traffic. About this latter topic, one has to pay attention to the cars, as, according to a Spanish statistics, the city with more accidents is Vigo. But no panic, one only has to get accustomed to the frantic style of guide and nothing more! Problems arise if you like biking, like me, because there is no respect for these two-wheels means.
Vigo is a very active city, especially during night life, which in Spanish is marcha. You can't find anyone before 2am, and generally the party ends at 6am. There are three important zones to visit: Churruca, with many bars and pubs with general-purpose music, from Celtic to English, to rock, to pop... The mean age is about 20-25 years, and in Churruca all the Erasmus students go to The Irish Pub (even if lately a lot of people also go to another bar in Gran Vía).
Then, Vinos, where the average age is about 16-20 years, and it is a very rock-punk-heavy-acid environment. It closes at 3.30am, like Churruca, and if you still want some more marcha you have to go to Samil, Vigo's beach, maybe the most exciting place to have fun, with a lot of discos, calm pubs, and locals with mambo, salsa and merengue music too.
There are also more bars (all with TV set) in the two most important streets of Vigo: Rúa Urzáiz and Gran Vía.
First of all, just visit the site of the University of Vigo. From there, one can download a lot of stuff about the programs of the classes (if you're attending Telecommunications Engineering, like I do, you can download the programs from www.teleco.uvigo.es, and the site is accessible from www.tsc.uvigo.es) and the campus, the CUVI (Centro Universitario de VIgo), which is located at about 16 kms from the city, in Zamans, on the hills surrounding Vigo.
To reach it, there are the buses (all with stereo!) of the Vitrasa company, whose ticket price was, in 1997, 110 ptas, 65 PTAs if you buy the Bonobus in a tobacconists'.
To find accommodation in Vigo, the right choice is to talk with the ORI (Oficina de Relacións Internacionais / Oficina de Relaciones Internacionales). Anyway, the cost of life isn't expensive, as a 100sqm apartment with single room costs about 20.000 PTAs
Galicia is the rainiest region of Spain, and Santiago de Compostela holds the record. It may rain with no pause for three days, but there are no floods or dangers. The rain is very soft, and one doesn't get fed up with that.
It never snows, and the minimum temperature reaches, in winter, about 10 Celsius degrees, while in summer the maximum degree is of about 40. There's a lot of wind, especially in winter, and its speed may reach 40mph, which, added to water, makes unuseful the aid of an umbrella.
There is a say, "Hasta el 40 de mayo no te quites El sayo" (don't put your raincoat off until May, 40) to put in evidence how the good and stable weather can only be found in summer.
If in Vigo there's almost nothing to see, the places around the city are worth being visited. With no doubt, Bayona, with its castle, town where the Columbus' Pinta arrived in 1503 after discovering America; and then, Tuy, La Guardia, Illa da Toxa. In front of Vigo there are the Cies Islands, natural park protected by the State, accessible by boat starting from mid-may until the end of September. It is worth a visit also because there is a camping site there (only for tents). More to the north there is Cabo Finisterre, the most occidental point of Spain.
If you want to see all Galicia, its provinces are Lugo, Ourense, Pontevedra, A Coruña.
To end, here we go with a list of links, some of which already presents in the above lines: For more information, you can also go to city.net and cyberspain.com, or send me a .

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