Welcome to Vigo, the capital of Galician freakiness.

Here’s a little guide to immerse yourself in a world with plenty of beaches, steep streets, possessed seagulls, escalators, natural parks, and Christmas lights. We even have a dinosaur transformed into an ornamental bush: Dinoseto. Don’t look at us like that, we told you we’re the capital of Galician freakiness.

What to see in Vigo?

Vigo is your city if you like walking and working on your glutes.

  1. Discover the Old Town

Let’s talk about the oldest part of the city. Here lies the origin of a small village that became Galicia’s most significant industrial city (no jokes about that). Walk through its historic streets, where, in 1809, the first expulsion of the French from Europe took place. Thus, every March 28th, the city celebrates one of its major festivals, A Reconquista: Napoleon Bonaparte’s first great fail. Walk by the Co-Cathedral (they didn’t have enough money for a full cathedral), have a beer in its many picturesque bars (but don’t overdo it, eh?), visit the last artisan basket makers’ shops, or admire the Arines house, the oldest building in the city. Dating from the 15th century, it currently houses the Portuguese Cultural Center, the Camões Center.

  1. Oyster Street

Oyster Street is perhaps the greatest tourist attraction in urban Vigo: dozens of meters are dedicated to tasting the famous bivalves from our estuary. The tradition is followed by instinct: Mollusks are bought directly from oyster sellers and enjoyed raw at tables of establishments spread along the street. The best pairing for this sea morsel is a glass of white wine with Rías Baixas designation of origin.

  1. Porta do Sol

The recently inaugurated Porta do Sol is Vigo’s km 0; the hinge connects Vigo’s historic neighborhood and the Ensanche, where the most modern art foundations, cultural centers, and museums are concentrated. In other words, it is the place to dress in our best attire and be seen. There, we’ll find one of the city’s icons: Francisco Leiro’s sculpture El Sireno, a symbol of the union between man and sea and also a witness to our dubious taste in sculptures.

  1. Samil Beach

Our beloved beach invites you to stop time facing the sea, admiring the silhouette of the Cíes Islands and Toralla Island. A place of leisure to go with family, alone, or in good company. The most daring and vicious can wait until nightfall and venture into the cruising zone located among the pines on the hills; we only recommend this activity to authentic libertine professionals.

  1. Cíes Islands

Vigo frames its horizon against the Cíes Islands, one of the most beautiful places in Galicia. Here, we truly take pride. This natural park combines Vigo’s most beautiful beaches with a unique natural environment and marine depths unparalleled in Spain. The archipelago can be visited by ferry or by drifting with a flotation device from Samil Beach. It’s ideal for enjoying with family or spending a weekend camping and hiking in Vigo. Just be aware that you’ll be sharing vacations with the largest protected reserve of yellow-legged gulls, so we recommend guarding and protecting food inside backpacks reinforced with Kevlar.

  1. Monte do Castro

Monte de O Castro is the origin of Vigo, where the first settlers established themselves in the 2nd and 3rd centuries BC and whose remains are preserved in the Archaeological Site. The city grew ascending and descending from this elevation, serpentining to create that unique orography that makes it possible to have a mountain in the middle of the city center, which is incredibly cool. It is a natural luxury that offers the best views of the Vigo estuary and the most beautiful sunsets.

  1. Rande Bridge

The Galician Golden Gate. It’s impossible to fully experience Vigo without crossing the Rande Bridge by car (motorcycle works, too) and contemplating the immensity of the estuary from its height. It’s worth approaching one of the city’s viewpoints to see it at night, hanging majestically over the sea. Opened to traffic in 1981, around 50,000 vehicles cross it daily,y and it’s one of the most characteristic bridges in Spain.

  1. Príncipe Street

Príncipe Street is Vigo’s shopping street. Named in honor of Isabel II’s son, it’s the city’s commercial heart with the best market stores: clothing, crafts, shoes, jewelry, and the leading Galician fashion brands… The most greedy stomachs will fall prey to the waffle shop, whose particular aroma enchants our pituitary gland like siren songs. If you notice an unfamiliar figure approaching you with a smile, they probably want to sell you a solidarity subscription. You can choose to be a good person or do like us and pretend you’re talking on your mobile phone.

  1. Vigo, City of Color

The public art festival has been transforming the city’s facades since 2015. It currently features over a hundred interventions by young and established artists, mainly local, but opening up to international collaboration each year. The event’s maximum goal is to turn the city into an open-air museum and replace our traditional ugliness with high-standing plastic works.

  1. O Marisquiño

O Marisquiño started in 2001 as a championship among friends organized by local skaters in the Castro skatepark in Vigo. It was gradually transformed into what it is today, one of the biggest street sports festivals in Europe, growing sustainably and adapting to new times, disciplines, and audiences while preserving the authenticity of the early years. Downhill, BMX, Skateboard World Cup, Break Dance, Dirt Jump, Graffiti, etc., are all present in this multi-disciplinary and vibrant festival. It is held annually in August.

  1. Dinoseto

Dinoseto was a bush shaped like a dinosaur and an icon, for years, of the city’s cultural decadence.

Born in 2015, it had a cub in 2016 (father unknown), a video game in 2017, and even the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, has photographs with it. Dinoseto is the total symbol of freakiness and the wonderful madness that governs this city.

It was a bureaucratic stroke that became a symbol of Vigo residents. Its initial location was supposed to be a children’s park in the parish of Navia. Still, an error by the installation company meant it landed in a central roundabout on Rosalía de Castro Street. Immediately, this vegetal T-Rex delighted the mobile phones of all Vigo residents, which is why Abel Caballero, the mayor and Jedi master of the meme, decided to make it a city symbol. It was permanently installed in the central Porta do Sol and lived for a time as the city’s most photographed “monument.” The mandatory selfie for tourists.

Due to the work of the street remodeling, Dinoseto was moved to Compostela Square’s promenade. There, it lived its twilight, eclipsed by Christmas lights and marked by an aggravated episode of vegetal alopecia. This fall into obscurity ended fatally with Dinoseto’s removal in 2024. It was supposedly transferred to a nursery where it recovers with its little Dinoseto, both dreaming of their past glorious days.

As could not be otherwise, we flew the Dinoseto flag as the city’s freak symbol for years, making it the protagonist of several festival posters, in which it died each year in an increasingly crazy way.

Discover more at: https://www.turismodevigo.org/