We met Deborah (the excursion organizer) and her husband Bob on Deck 3 near the front office after watching the ship come into the harbor. Shortly after 10am, we were released to disembark the the ship. After a brief wait ashore, our Tours by Locals guide, Miguel, met us and escorted us to his nice 8 passenger Mercedes van. He was a head dining room waiter on Crystal Cruises for 13 years; is married to a Canadian he met on a cruise ship; and lives in Porto, Portugal which is about 1.5 hours driving distance from Vigo, Spain.
He indicated that Vigo has about 300,000 population and there are 2.,500,000 in the province of Galacia. Also he noted that this is the mussel farming capital of Spain. We saw lots of evidence of mussel farms as we drove out to our first stop at the Don Olegario family orchard and winery just outside Combado. We enjoyed a nice tasting and description of the production process. We even were able to get a picture of a 40 year old John Deere tractor that's still in service.
We then drove to the seaside village of
Comparro for a terrific lunch stop. Miguel ordered a variety of local items which we divided among the group. We experienced mussels, clams, amazingly tender octopus, jumbo shrimp, bread, fried peppers, and a Spanish omelet. We then drove back to Vigo and found a cool overlook at Parque Charlie Rivel before returning to the ship.
We ate dinner in the Main Dining Room and were seated with Mary and Ben from California and Brian and Jean (son from Maryland and his mother from Georgia). Mary had fallen the day before and sported a large black eye. Brian is a writer for AP.
After dinner we watched the 8:30pm Magic Show on the World Stage (Sylvia and the great Handini) before retiring to the room to watch a movie about running of the bulls in Pamplona.
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