Hello all
welcome to my blog :-)
The most beautiful and bright time of the year has arrived! My father loved Christmas and that spirit ended up being passed on to us. I love seeing the streets lit up, the houses and I like browsing photo galleries of Christmas markets and places covered in snow and decorated where we can almost smell the "smell of Christmas". One of my childhood memories that I will never forget is related to lights and vermicelli. Every year my father took us to see the decorations in Porto. In our city the lighting was almost non-existent but in the "big city" there were many and I was enchanted by it. Vermicelli is a traditional Portuguese sweet and can be cooked in many ways. There's nothing like my mother's, and every year on the 24th while I lived with her, I was woken up with a warm plate of aletria with a lemon peel! Unequaled:-)
Last year we heard about the Vigo Christmas Market and off we went. It was a rainy night but we still managed to see a lot. As the weather wasn't very good, we promised that we would return this year to better appreciate what the city could offer us.
It turns out that thanks to social media, Vigo went viral and it seems that all Portuguese people had the same idea. 1st day of December, sunny day and we all go just like a pilgrimage.
It took us 3 hours to arrive when we should have arrived in an hour and a half and another 40 minutes to be able to park :-(
We went down the main avenue and realized that in addition to all the visitors, there was a demonstration taking place, so everything helped. The streets were crowded and all decorated. The children laughed and we could see their little heads all turned up admiring the bows, bells and the like... There are 400 streets lit by 11 million LEDs.
We went down towards the Alameda da Plaza de Compostela where we could see the big Ferris Wheel (the queue to ride was 2 km long) and the stalls selling everything from food to handicrafts. This market is one of the largest in Europe, has free entry and its name is Cíes Market (related to the Cíes islands) and can be visited until the 14th of January. Unfortunately, we couldn’t eat anything because there were so many people that we could barely walk, let alone stop to eat. With kids it is unthinkable unless they are in strollers, which is no longer the case with ours.
From there we headed to Praza Porta do Sol where the Christmas tree is. According to what locals told us, it is the largest on the planet at 40.5 meters high and has a beautiful carousel that delights children and adults alike.
Before getting there we walked along Rua Policarpo Sanz where along the way we found several inviting places to take photos, to be visited and appreciated but without success. Once again everything was full of people and the queues to be able to take photographs were longer than 30 minutes. We saw Santa Claus with his sleigh as if he had landed there by accident, the snowman with the giant ball. I stopped to look at some windows full of decorations to bring home. Since our little girl was born, my sister started the tradition of offering her a Christmas ball that was different from the common ones from different countries every year. The photo where the toy soldiers appear is the store where he bought one last year.
I hope we can visit some more Christmas markets but I get the feeling that wherever I go everything is always overcrowded. We ended up not enjoying it as much as we would have liked.
I believe that the two pandemics that kept us at home mean that people are making the most of every moment they have to go for a walk. At least this is my perception!
I hope you enjoyed!
Text & Photography by @Onyfest
With love 