Cíes Islands–Atlantic Islands of Galicia National

Visiting the national park of Galician Atlantic Islands requires a little bit of anticipation. It is made of four groups of islands ashore the Rias of Galicia, but only two of them can be easily accessed: the ones of Cies and Ons. There are different companies operating boats from different Galician cities to the islands, from Easter until autumn on weekends, and daily during summer. The number of visitors every day is limited, so you must first obtain a permit from the National Park website: you request it online (one per person) and receive a code (by e-mail) which you must then indicate when booking the boat trip. You cannot book without the code and the code is valid for a few hours only, so it is better to look at the boats offers and timetables first and be ready to book as soon as you get the code. Finally, codes can be requested maximum 45 days before the wished date, and you cannot change your date afterwards. This said, we had no difficulties to go through this process and had our tickets ready for a day trip last August, from Cangas to Cies islands. We chose Cangas as a most family friendly alternative to the big city of Vigo, and the sailing was only 30 minutes each way.

For being in the Atlantic Ocean, Cies Islands and Galicia are in general quite exposed to bad weather, even during summer, but luckily the clouds were gone by the time …