11 October 2022 - Aveiro

Miles driven today = 60

Total Miles to date = 2,203

The mizzly weather of the last two days has now left us and we are largely back to sunshine and blue skies with temperatures in the low 20s, which to my mind is pretty much perfect.

After the trials and tribulations of 2 days ago with Google Maps it was the Search4Sites app which let us down today.  We set our controls for the heart of the free aire near the railway station at Aveiro using the latitude and longditude co-ordinates given by the app.  It basically took us to the entrance of an underground carpark, which was no use to us at all.  So we tried again, went round in a circle and ended up ... in exactly the same place!  Luckily I had LisaMaps to guide me so third time lucky we got ourselves into a rough car park near the station.  And what a magnificent station it is too!  Decked out in a fabulous display of the blue and white tiling we have become so accustomed to.

From there it was a 20 minute walk into the centre of the town they call the Venice of Portugal.  We followed one of the city's canals for a portion of the way, noticing all of the footbridges are covered in coloured ribbons.  We later found out that this was because local sweethearts had been indulging in the old writing their names on a padlock and attaching them to railings routine to such an extent that the bridges were in danger of collapsing from the added weight.  So the padlocks were removed and are now replaced with considerably less weighty ribbons.

We booked ourselves on a boat trip of the canals.  These used to be done on old redundant kelp collecting boats but most of them are purpose built these days.  A lot of the boats have un-PC saucy seaside postcard type cartoons painted on their prows.

First stop was at the sea lock where it was explained that the tidal waters were kept out of the town nowadays because the mud smelt so bad at low tide.  We were also told that Aveiro got it's name from the latin "City of the Birds" due to the fact that flamingos can be seen on the lagoons around here.  Sure enough we spotted some later as we drove to our overnight stop.

We then followed the canal that the local fishermen used to live along and also where salt from the local salt pans was stored.  Very few of the original buildings still exist but alot of the newer properties are still built in a similar style.  

This is reckoned to be the oldest bridge over the canals.  It's only 70 years old.  Prior to that they didn't need a bridge as the canals were so packed with boats you could supposedly just walk across them.

This is an old tide mill.  It's now a swanky hotel.

And this is an old disused brickworks which has been converted into the town's council's offices.

A lot of the town's buildings are Art Nouveau in their styling.

We visited what was supposed to be an Art Nouveau museum but it basically held an exhibition of installations from the University of Applied Arts in Vienna.  All a bit odd if you ask me.

We really liked the town.  It's very up and coming.  There is an awful lot of building work going on but thankfully they seem to be trying to retain the facades of the older buildings rather than simply knocking them down and starting again.  

Here's a few more photos from our boat trip and wanderings around the town.

When we got back to the van it was only mid afternoon and we weren't really thrilled by the idea of spending the night in a station car park.  So we headed out onto a spit of land which forms the Aveiro Lagoon.  The northern part has marinas full of expensive looking motorboats and a lot of the buildings look like oversized candy striped beach huts.

As we progressed though the land became less developed.  We spotted a flock of the aforementioned flamingos in the lagoon.  They are white rather than pink.  Pink flamingos only get their colour from the specific variety of crustacean they eat.  Our guide on the boat tour told us they aren't pink "because we eat all the shrimp".

We've landed in a motorhome parking area next to a disused water park.  It's tucked behind the dunes and a lot of our companions seem to be the surfer dude types.  It's €8:50 a night plus an additional €3 for hook up.  All we can hear are the Atlantic waves crashing on the beach.

There's also a really cool surf bar serving predominantly veggie food, which is pretty much unheard of in Portugal.  Lisa was very pleased with her mixed mushrooms with eggs & chips.

I got a vegan burger and I have to say I was gobsmacked by how much it tasted like the "real" thing.  

We had a few beers and wines and somehow the whole bill only came to €26.  Plus we got to watch what was undoubtably the best sunset of the tour to date.  I'm never one for sitting still for long but I could be persuaded to stay another day.

12 October 2022 - Flamingos in the mist