P&O MV Arcadia; Wednesday, 22 October, 2025

The weather had improved remarkably by the time the ship was making its gradual entrance into the harbour at Gijón as we settled down for breakfast, which was once again eaten under the cover of night as sunrise wasn’t until nearly 9am. It also meant that we had the picturesque twinkling of lights in the harbour and the faint smear of light creeping over the mountains in the distance as our breakfast backdrop rather than the reality that revealed itself in daylight of a cement manufacturing plant and the oil terminals of the very industrial end of the city.

Due to the shortened stop in the city almost all the day trips had been cancelled with the exception of the Leisurely tour that mum and I had booked on, which at only three hours long was able to be accommodated in the time we had in port, so shortly after breakfast we stepped off the boat and headed to the coach for our tour of Gijón.

The tour started with a scenic drive, though the first 5 minutes through the port could probably be more accurately described as gritty, through the city and along the beach front before heading around the bay to a viewpoint located about 7km on from the city from where there were excellent views back down on Gijón, it’s old town on a peninsular and the more modern city that has built up behind it and then slowly spreading along the beach. It was also possible to look across to the harbour and at the far end, next to the cement works, see our ship parked up.

From the viewpoint the tour returned back towards the city centre, taking a different route to see more of the city, including going past several of the city’s parks before our second stop of the tour at an historic hotel for a coffee and tapas stop, along with the chance to sample Asturian cider.

After the tapas stop there was an opportunity to go for a walk around the neighbouring park, or just to sit in the park and enjoy the warmth of the sun, which is what mum and I opted to do, before heading back to the coach and our return journey back to the ship, which we arrived at with just 2 minutes to spare before all aboard time, which in the end turned out to be quite flexible as it took a good 15 minutes for everyone to pass through security screening and reboarding.

We headed up to my cabin to watch the sail away from Gijón and a little later headed up to the buffet for afternoon tea and later in the evening the regular routine of drinks and joining the virtual dinner queue.

Whilst having dinner the captain came back on the Tannoy to update us on the weather conditions both on where we were heading and on the Bay of Biscay. The prognosis for Santander was probably a little worse than it had been the previous afternoon, so it was good that we were heading out of the bay, but Benjamin was closing in fast and it would reach the bay before we were out of it, so the captain was expecting us to experience hurricane force 12 winds in the short period before we rounded Cape Finisterre and headed into the Atlantic proper, so it was likely going to be another rough night.

After dinner we headed back to our cabins to turn in for the night, in preparation for it being another rocky one.