Spain: Vigo

James and Penny Symington provided all too good a dinner for us in Porto, considering how early our train left the next morning: I acquired a stiff neck, trying to catch up on sleep on the way North, back towards Spain. Not one of our most comfortable trains.

We had a two-hour slot in Vigo, waiting for our East-bound train, but failed to make the best of it. (Vigo, Santander and Lyon were all failures on that score: they all had something to offer, but we were flummoxed by the lack of left luggage lockers and/or our failure to get to grips with the geography. In Lyon, we got as far as the Metro platform, but no trains came! It was Sunday morning. Memo for future trips: do pre-journey prep when you only have a relatively short time to look round somewhere.)

Quite often during our holiday we came across human statues. They are very much part of the scene in Barcelona's Las Ramblas for instance. Sometimes they are caught unawares: Julius Caesar winked at me in Brussels as he (or was it she?) puffed at a furtive cigarette. I thought I'd lined up Charlie Chaplin for a photograph whilst he was waiting to cross the road in Vigo; but - not having been paid - he turned away.