Our story began with the coming-and-going of the waves in the Estuary of Vigo, which inspired our mediaeval troubadour, Martín Códax, to compose his beautiful songs. But it was Fate who chose that, in 1914, seven centuries after the songs were composed, a bookseller called Pedro Vindel was to find his poems on a scroll used to cover a copy of Cicero’s De Officiis.

Vigo has become a muse for writers all over the world. From Jules Verne to the latest bestsellers by Domingo Villar, including Otero Pedrayo...