PORTUGAL: AVEIRO, THE (NOT) VENICE OF PORTUGAL

 June 27, 2022

Our last stop on a very full day was the city of Aveiro. Photos of the city that we saw online were beautiful, and we were excited to visit. However, Aveiro turned out to be the biggest dud of our trip.

First of all, we parked in an underground parking garage that at the end of the day we had a very hard time finding. We would learn more than once on this trip (or maybe we DIDN'T learn) that we need to pay more attention to where we leave our car. We rarely had main streets or grid-like streets to help us navigate. Luckily, I took a photo of the above-ground portion of the parking garage, which saved us in the end.

As we made our way from our parking spot on the hill down to the canals that the city is famous for, we passed some interesting sites. The sign on the left let us know that this city is on the pilgrimage trail to Spain's Santiago de Campostela Cathedral, a place we would visit in a few days.

Like every city we visited in Portugal, there were churches with beautiful azulejo tile facades and streets with intricate cobblestone patterns.

Aveiro is sometimes referred to as "the Venice of Portugal" because of the systems of canals and beautiful boats, known as moliceiros, mainly used for tourism.

Colorful buildings border the main canal "port."

A large number of tour companies vie for passengers.

We paid 13 € each for a 45-minute ride with 30 other people and a tour guide who spoke in Portuguese and then translated his monologue into not-quite-passable English. 

Our journey took us under several bridges adorned with what I assume are a version of the "locks of love" seen all over Europe. I like this ribbon version much better.

We learned that the canals were originally used for transportation, fishing, and salt harvesting.

This is the old Jerónimos Pereira Campos ceramics factory. These days it is used for other things.

The guide insisted that every couple stand at the front of the boat for photos, using our cell phones to take pictures of us, including some where he commanded us to kiss. (Those are too weird to include here.)

It was pleasant but kitschy at the same time. Definitely NOT Venice.

             

Our guide made a big deal about how clean the water is, which really IS impressive.

Overall, however, the ride was a yawner, and then after we disembarked, we walked around the canal area looking for food. We were starving and couldn't find a place open for dinner, even though it was 6:00. NOTHING opened until later. 

Eventually we decided to head back in the general direction of where we thought we had left our car.

By far the best part of our visit to Aveiro happened when we decided to stop for dinner at a pub, where we both ordered a francesinha, an enormous multi-level, multi-meat sandwich covered in sauce and cheese with a very lightly cooked egg on top. WOW. We had another version of this sandwich in Porto, but I don't think it held a candle to this one.

More sights from our wandering. 

Is that Frida? The flowers are right, but the eyebrows are not.

Luckily, we only wandered for a little while before we recognized this blue-tiled building that was near our parking spot and then used the aforementioned photo to find the garage. Whew. We would not be so lucky later in our trip.