We have arrived at the Atlantic Ocean! But first we went to discover the Venice of Portugal: Aveiro. It lies at the river delta of the river Vouga which we know already so well from our cycling tour. Canals meander through the town and traditional boats, barcos moliceiros, once used for collecting moliço seaweed, now transport tourists.
Aveiro is also famous for its salt production and maritime trade. Born in Aveiro in the 16th century, João Afonso was one of the first sailors to visit the rich fishing grounds of Newfoundland, and the fishermen of Aveiro soon became actively involved in the lucrative fishing industry there. Due to a storm in 1575, the harbour entrance silted up to such an extent that shipping and fishing were severely impaired, and fertile land became marshy. Only in 1808, after several unsuccessful attempts, a new harbour entrance was opened.
There are a number of buildings in the Art Nouveau style in town. This wonderful example is even a museum, just that they are changing their exhibition at the moment, and we could only visit the entrance area.
The Aveiro Museum is housed in the old Convent of Jesus of the female Dominican Order. It dates back to the 2nd half of the 15th century. Princess Joana, daughter of King Afonso V, entered the convent in 1472, leading the life of a nun until her death in 1490. She was beatified in 1693 by Pope Innocent XII but for the Portuguese she is a saint.
There is a beautiful room, which houses the impressive tomb of Princess Joana, a masterpiece of mosaic in marble.
The Church of Jesus, decorated with sumptuous golden woodcarving along with Portuguese azulejos is an fine example of exuberant baroque decoration. The abundance of gold just didn’t feel right to us.
In the afternoon, we had to take a boat trip through town. You can’t come to Aveiro and don’t do that!
We had used the service of the official camper parking in town, but had chosen a parking closer to the centre, which lies next to the highway: 40.644001, -8.65907. When navigating through town, we used Google Maps without noticing that we had chosen the route for bicycles, which brought us in a difficult situation, where the only way out was to drive backwards around the block. Hopefully the navigator has learned something, the driver at least stayed cool.
To get finally to the ocean, we left town for the beaches. For the first night, we used a parking at Praia da Barra but moved further south to Praia do Areão for some more days at the beach. The beaches here are incredible: white sand and dunes, stretching endless along the coast, with nearly no people at that time of the year.
After sunny days, we also had a day of fog where the sun tried to get through, but most of the time didn’t succeed. It gave the beach a mystique ambience, where people disappeared in the fog.
We will now drive north to Porto – looking forward to exploring the second-largest town of Portugal and maybe sampling some Port?