Pedestrian/Zebra Crossing Vigo

A recent statistic came to light, after an accident involving two elderly woman on a pedestrian crossing last week. In Vigo, you have just as much chance of being hit by a vehicle on a pedestrian crossing, as you have in crossing the road at any other place. The two woman in question were crossing on a controlled cross, the light was red for traffic and green for them, they were seriously injured with multiple fractures.

It seems that scant respect is given to red lights and not a day goes by without seeing vehicles running them. I have had three near misses using the pedestrian crossing, one of them whilst I was pushing my son in a pushchair. It pays to look both ways before you cross the road. Here in Vigo it pays not to stop looking!

The photo above is the result of the overturned car running a red light through a pedestrian crossing, fortunately no one was injured in this incident.

Bloomin Blossoms in Vigo

We've been having some glorious weather over the past few days and it looks set to continue until the end of the week. It's the type of weather that you would wish for all year round.

The blossoms seem to agree and are starting to show there colours all over the city, although this early blooming isn't unique to Vigo or Galicia, it's seems to be a worldwide phenomenon. If it is due to global warming, then seeing these beautiful flowers in bloom makes it that little harder to see the darker side of the problem.

Hang-on, maybe here in Pontevedra blossoms are suppose to bloom at this time and if so, I can lift my head out of the dark shadow of global warming and breathe a deep blossom scented sigh of relief.

Will keep you posted...

A place to hang your washing is very important in Vigo!

This is at the top of a 15 story block, so I had the camera at maximum zoom and since it only has a 3x optical zoom, the picture is a bit fuzzy and it didn't help that I was shaking. Anyway, enough of the excuses.

The question is, do you think this hole in the building was intended for the purpose it's being used for and if so, would you agree, that a lot of emphasis is placed on where to put your washing, when constructing apartment blocks?

What to do in Vigo on a winters day...

...go to the beach of course.

I took this photo on a Sunday afternoon down at Playa Smail. This isn't something that happens every weekend, this type of weather in winter is very unseasonal for Galicia.

To the left of the photo, just out of the picture is a two kilometre promenade on which every family and their carry dog were out for 'un paseo' the traditional Spanish walk, taken after the big lunch and siesta.

The promenade has everything, cafes, bars, restaurants swimming pools, playgrounds and picnic areas in a lovely wooded setting. Buy yourself an ice-cream and join the locals in this afternoon ritual and you'll know a little more about what it is to be Spanish.