Aveiro - The salty Venice

Our further journey towards the Algarve included a stopover in the town of 'Aveiro', which we had only heard was the little Venice of Portugal. Shortly after arriving there, we felt almost obliged (after a short break for Sangria drinks) to take a gondola tour through the canals. In addition to the mostly beautiful views, we also learned some interesting background information about the city. In the past, it was home to many salt producers, mainly due to its lagoons. The canals are now only the remaining relics of that time, mainly for tourists. During our tour, two bridges were recommended to us, both called 'Bridge of Love'. On one, you are supposed to kiss, and on the other, you are to tie your love with ribbons...

The side canal with its outdoor gastronomy gives a bit of an 'inner harbor feeling', although much smaller and more lively. The second row of streets also had many shops to offer gastronomically, almost all of which were clad in the typical (corrosion protection) tiles typical of Portugal. Of course, we also had to expand our gastronomic experiences in this little town. In addition to the locally renowned desserts 'Tripas' (a half-raw crepe from the waffle iron) and 'Ovos Moles' (sugared egg yolk in edible paper), there were also various Bacalhau specialties. Unfortunately, we had to painfully realize that if you order two servings of the typical ice cream flavors (fig, Nata, Ovos Moles, Port wine, etc...) with a mask, you really get very large four scoops. Because 'Bollen' is a unit of two scoops here 🤣. However, the gastronomic highlight was the sushi restaurant SuBenShi, which was able to impress us with truly outstanding Portuguese-Japanese fusion sushi combinations, thanks to several recommendations.

Just outside the city (a 10-minute walk, yes the whole city is quite small 😉), we finally saw the last remaining salt pyramids and decided to take a stroll there as well. You can bathe in some individual spa salt lagoon pools and rub yourself with the salt on site. It's a definitely burning experience 😳. But at least there were plenty of salt specialties to buy there 😬🙈.

A nice characteristic of Aveiro is its location only 10 minutes' drive from the coast and thus its proximity to some well-known beaches, such as Praia da Costa Nova with its striped houses. Since we hadn't had a beach vacation so far and we had seen almost everything in Aveiro relatively quickly, we took a several-hour break right there 🌊. The large Baltic Sea-like beach and the relatively high waves are really very nice to look at. However, the very cold water is also a bit deterrent 😬. Our anticipation for the Algarve with its diverse beaches is now growing even more 🏝...