Destination: Aveido, Portugal

Aveiro canal and the boats

This morning I stumbled on a travel blog called “Cabinet of Chic Curiosities” by “MessyNessy” about a Portuguese city called Aveiro and I was entranced. The article was written by someone who visited there on their trip to Portugal in 2015. The post is titled “The Candy Colored Venice of Portugal” and is so-called because of the brightly coloured buildings and absolutely wonderfully striped beach houses in the nearby area of Costa Nova. Portugal is a place I’ve long had on my list of countries to visit. I don’t know if I’ll ever get there but you never know!

Aveiro Cathedral

The north of Portugal, around Porto and the Duoro Valley is supposed to be really beautiful. Most people visit Lisbon and the beaches on the south coast but I think perhaps the north might even be nicer. Aveiro is about an hour south of Porto and that’s an easy day trip by train or even bus if you haven’t rented a car. While the tourist information all calls Aveiro the “Venice” of Portugal, it isn’t really. There is a small canal system, with little humped bridges over them, and the boats look a little similar to the vaporetto though are painted in a distinctly Portuguese fashion. The architecture is gorgeous and for us cathedral lovers, they have one of those, too. A few museums, some shops and markets and beaches nearby. It’s got a university and fully one quarter of the population is students.

Striped Beach Houses at Costa Nova, Aveiro in Portugal

Ah yes, the beaches. This is the thing that really caught my eye. The Costa Nova beaches are a little outside of Aveiro and you can get there via public transportation. There’s a lighthouse and long, white, sandy beaches. And along the water front are these small beach houses all painted in bright stripes! I really want to gush and say “how cute is that!?” I’ll settle for saying how different and how very attractive it is. Those bright colours really do suit a sunny beach, don’t you think?

Aveiro canal. You can rent that yellow house through bookings.com. It’s called Caso do Mercado

Aveiro will have some good restaurants, too, where fresh seafood will be featured. For souvenirs, there is the ubiquitous Portuguese ceramics. Also, nearby this area, are salt flats and you can get salt from there. That’ll be a bit different than the usual tea towel or postcard! There’s also a local baked sweet specialty called ovos moles. They look like little oblong pastries, with a crunchy shell, looking almost egg-like in some photos and in others, they are shaped like fish and inside is a golden orangy yellow filling made from sweetened egg yolks. Here’s a recipe.

Check out MessyNessy’s blog about Aveiro. It sounds wonderful! At the bottom, there are links to the rest of their Portugal journey, equally interesting with beautiful photos.

Very good guide here
A WikiTravel about Aveiro
A travel guide from PortoPortugal.com