039 - Redondela - Galicia/Spain
Which is the best spot to take a photo of the famous Rande Bridge? Let's discover!
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039.1 I am in the train, and it is my first ever trip outside Vigo (I arrived here in 2016 for work). Not long after departure, I hear already that the next station is Redondela (Proxima Parada - Redondela). What made me pause the music in my headphones was the way the man was announcing the city: it sounded like a game show on the TV. It was so funny that I looked up on the phone what is to be seen in Redondela (on map).
039.2 Of course I did visit Redondela, in fact, more than once. For instance, in 2018 I did the trip again, because I wanted to take a photo of this Viaduct of Madrid that is simply a deserted monument (no rail connected to it). It must have been quite the sight to see a train above your tall apartment building. I took photos of it from ground level, but those don't look nearly as good. During the night, there are light projections.
039.3 There are many viaducts in Redondela and I loved them so much that I pretty much forgot about all the other monuments. This is the side view of Pontevedra Viaduct. On this viaduct, trains actually do run (I was on this one).
039.4 Since we are at the topic of viaducts, this one has no name. I will explain what this place is, in the next picture, however the viaduct is for the highs speed connection from Vigo to Pontevedra, Santiago de Compostela and terminus at A Coruna. I took also this train more times, since is just a coffee more expensive than the regular one and is way faster, mostly because it has only 3 stops. So in the morning I would take the cheap train for sight seeing and on return trip I would choose the high speed train since I am already tired so I don’t mind the many tunnels it passes since it is dark anyway outside. The high speed connections are at least one every hour (maybe two, depending on the season), so I had to stay quite a while at this place waiting for the noise of a train exiting the tunnel (left of the picture). I did miss one train, so had to wait 15 more minutes for the second one (waiting time usually is 45 minutes, then 15, then 45, 15 and so on, plus the other direction)
039.5 Fervenza da Feixa. This little gem I found it thanks to Open Street Maps where somebody marked the location as a waterfall. This picture was done in 2018, ignore the error in the metadata. For this shot I took also a tripod and a ND filter (to allow less light going into the camera, so I can take photos that are longer exposed). At this waterfall there is a restaurant, a small pond and it used to be a watermill also. The restaurant was opened and we took only coffee and then we took photos, while my old camera was on the tripod, aimed at the viaduct, so that when I hear something coming, I would rush to the camera, re-activate it and hit the shutter.
039.6 Pazo de Reboreda. The landscape of Redondela is mostly high hills at more than 400 meters. There are lot of vineyards, lots of stone walls, tons of moss, similar to Baiona in fact. Here in Redondela you can also see the planes landing at Vigo airport so if you like aviation photography, then this is a great spot to combine modern tech with hundreds of years of history.
039.7 The climate is similar to the whole Galicia - rainy and sunny, with cold humid winters. I came to Redondela mostly after work, and on days that were not really great big city walks. Redondela is not dark, is just that in the pictures I took, it so happens to be dark clouds. I also have night shots but those are not great... mostly because I was holding the umbrella with one hand.
039.8 There are many photos to be made in Redondela, and weirdly enough, my favourite is this one. It reminds me of my countryside.
039.9 If you don’t care about trains or viaducts like I do, then I suppose this is the best place in Redondela. Punta do Cabo is a beach that is in this triangular shape. Watching waves hit the beach is more interesting than you would think and I will not lie, we came here twice just to watch this again and again.
039.10 If you come to Vigo by plane, you can get a pretty good look at Redondela, and more importantly, at this interesting looking beach. Also, not hard to notice, there is at least one "big" island in the middle of the estuary.
039.11 The island of San Simon can be visited and from my point of view it is not a romantic place… The history of this place is mostly religious in the XIIth century and then wars and battles, concluding to Spanish Civil War, where it was used as a “concentration and extermination camp”. Hundreds have died here, per year… only way to escape the prison, was if dead... so they say. Because it is iconic, and because of the beach, I decided to make this place as symbol for the article. I put the Friends show running in my headphones and for 14 days (14 nights actually) I recreated the shape of the island in 3D and some visible buildings. After having spent 2 hours only on the bridge connecting San Simon with Santo Anto, I then realized that much of the details will not even be visible. In fact after reaching more than 50% completion, I realized most of my work will not be visible in the small render that I do inside the hexagon.
039.12 Apart from the interesting shape of the beach, and the San Simon island, there is the beautiful view over Ponte de Rande, that was under re-construction (extension actually) for the most part of 2016-17 and finally in 2018 I got a much beautiful picture of it, without all the scaffolding, and with a beautiful sunset. As it can be seen in this image, unlike in the previous ones, there are almost no clouds... so yeah sometimes I would come to Redondela just for the sunset, but not always I was lucky.
039.13 There are more beautiful places in Redondela, such as Ermita Da Peneda however my favorite places are the beach, the viaducts and of course Fervenza da Feixa (the waterfall).
We hope you enjoyed this short article, and hope you will check other articles from this blog.
Thank you,
MiDe.
