14 September 2019

Ok, so comparing to Venice might be a bit of a stretch, but Aveiro does have waterways, it does have gondola-type boats, and it does have Italians (there were three of them, on our boat!!).

We boarded our “moliceiro” , along with our new Portuguese, Spanish, French and Italian friends, for a 45 minute tour of the waterways.

Our guide stole the show, switching fluently from each language as required (except for Italian, but that was ok because the Italians were fluent in English and Spanish anyway) . As compensation for her lack of fluent Italian, she promised to wave her hands around a lot!

Aveiro has several other claims to fame:

Beautiful old buildings,

Amazing new buildings,

With some Art Nouveau Buildings thrown in.

Three kinds of salt apparently, although I think I only saw one.

But most delicious of all …..

Ovos Moles!!!! Made from egg yolks and sugar. And that’s about it! Delicious!!

What’s a daily blog post in Portugal without some tile pics?

The locals even air their dirty (clean) washing in front of some pretty fancy tile work.

We came across a flash mob singing Carmen which was pretty cool.

But enough culture, it’s time to move on!

Costa Nova, what a gem!

On the recommendation of our earlier guide , we took a small detour that had not previously been on our itinerary!!

While we were on the same stretch of beach, we headed to the other end to see Portugal’s largest lighthouse.

On to Guimarães, which may be our favourite place so far.

We had a view of the fort from the kitchen window which was impressive, but it was Saturday night, and the locals were up for a party and that was far more impressive.

There was dancing in one of the town squares: everything from a “Nutbush” style, to waltz, cha cha and Tango. Sadly no “Strip the Willow”.

Those living on the edge of the square had no choice but to join in.

There was also a three hour mountain bike race organised around all the local monuments and tourist spots at night. The cyclists tore past at crazy speeds whilst trying to avoid the hay bales , the dancers and the pedestrians.

The organisers may have forgotten that the end of Saturday night mass coincided with the time the cyclists came screaming around the corner of the ancient church. An OHS nightmare!

Later in the evening the dancers gave up the square and the opera singer took over.

We booked into ”Historico” a Fado Restaurant, for dinner and were entertained by these two singing melancholy songs and playing wonderful guitar.

We ❤️ Guimarães!