They call it the Venice of Portugal. If that was the case, any town that the Leeds/Liverpool canal goes through could be a Venice of whatever shire one might be chugging a barge through. Still, Aveiro charms, with it’s nouveau architecture, pretty squares, and its penchant for hosting craft beer and food festivals.
Living in Porto, it’s easy for us to get here – it takes around an hour, so just enough time to check facebook 85 times just in case you’ve missed something important. Or, as I did, leaf through the Lonely Planet, where I learnt that the colourful boats that plough the canals are called moliceiros, and that Aveiro is a “youthful town with an energetic buzz.” The first impression as you leave the train station on a Sunday (my weekend day) however, is of a bland street lined with rather soulless structures and not much going on as you walk down towards the all-important canals. Once you reach the waterside, however, you see what the Planet is on about. Moliceiro’s chug up on and down taking tourists on joy rides, and there is a lovely half open-air shopping mall, the Forum Aveiro. Vero particularly likes this type of shopping mall as it is similar to her favourites in Caracas, and the open concept is a delight for the shopped-out boyfriend or husband, as it gives the false impression of freedom being tantalisingly close and they can relax in any one of the number of cafes in the middle of the complex.
Window shopping over, we headed across one of the pretty bridges that cross the canal to the mighty Praca Humberto Delgado Aveiro, and were politely asked by several boat operators if we’d like a tour. Eventually we said yes to one that was leaving soon, and soon we were boarding one of the famous moliceiros. These boats were originally developed to gather seaweed out of the lagoon (which had been created when sand blowing from the Atlantic created banks that created a barrier between the estuary which Aveiro once stood upon, and the sea) before the lagoon was opened out once more to the sea through the construction of a network of canals. The boats now have an arguably more interesting task – to take tourists on pleasure rides along the canals. We even saw a wedding party on one boat, and a group of student musicians on another, mid-song. The boats vie for attention through their colourfully painted sides and prongs, with some of them displaying some quite racy images of women in various states of undress, perhaps the wives of the boatsmen in their younger years.
Our boat weaved between the canals and waterways, passing colourful houses, grand buildings, and markets, and took us up to the trendy Fonte Nova area of Aveiro, all red brick apartments and grassy canal banks, with a big industrial era chimney towering above all at the end of the canal, and the impressive modern Hotel Melia Ria across the other side.
After this we wandered the pretty town with its pretty praças, lined with boutique shops, ice-cream parlours, and craft beer places, and ended up at the Fish Market Square (Praça do Peixe). Here, there are a number of restaurants to choose from, including the Mercado de Peixe restaurant, which is located in the newly built glass-walled fish market. However, the price of turbot here is extortionate to one earning a local salary, so instead we popped into the cheaper, more cheerful restaurant across the way for a set lunch of the day. That’s the good thing about anywhere in Portugal, really. You can go for the pricey touristy places, or look a little past the English menus and boards and find more local places with lots of character. Aveiro has a good smattering of both, and is quite the seafood heaven. We had a delicious octopus salad and something with codfish, washed down with a crisp glass of refreshing white wine from the Douro, and then we headed out once more to continue our exploring, wandering the pretty town centre before heading over to the other side of canal to the Barrio Historico, an area full of old churches decorated with azulejos, grand mansions, and pretty streets with black and white patterned cobblestones in the manner of typical Portuguese streets. Even to this day, when a new street is put down, the workmen assemble the stones in such a manner - more street artists than road layers. This, and the azulejos adorning everything from churches to little houses, makes for very pretty towns. The attention to detail is fascinating.
It was thirsty work, all the wandering, and soon we headed back to the Forum mall – and across the bridge to the Aveiro craft beer festival. Little vans selling craft beers and hotdogs were parked up outside a cavernous tent, inside which was a delight for the senses – there were a hundred or so little stalls selling beer from all over the world (over 300 varieties!), as well as nibbles to go with it, including one place selling the ever-popular lupini beans (or tremoços as they are known here), soaking in buckets in a variety of flavours. You can’t drink beer in Portugal without having a little bowl of tremoços in front of you. Almost everyone in the beer-loving crowd had a hipster beard (or should that be a craft beer lover beard?). It was clearly, then, the place to be in Aveiro.
The problem with craft beer is that it is bloody strong, and after the third glass we were already staggering and starting to slur, and our tendency to speak Spanglish to each other probably made us appear even drunker. It was time to go back to the train station and back to Porto. Aveiro is lovely, it’s a gem of a place, and well worth a visit. Venice of Portugal it might be, but in reality there is no comparison - it’s got a character all of its own, and if you’re a food lover or a beer lover, then you’ve found paradise in those pretty squares, in the narrow streets, and on the grassy banks of the canal watching the colourful moliceiros chug past.
