Rick Steves calls Aveiro the Venice of Portugal. That calls for a day trip to see if he is right or just blowing smoke. Just a little fun fact, for years Rick Steves has been smoking weed every day and is a big advocate for legalizing cannabis nationwide.
I got up early this morning and caught the train from Porto to Aveiro. When I left Porto it was chilly and cloudy and rainy. I was hoping for better weather in Aveiro.
I got to Aveiro at about 9:30 and spent about an hour walking around town.
Aveiro is also known for these blue tiles.
It was starting to cloud up so I decided to do a gondola ride before it started raining.
These boats are called moliceiros in Aveiro. The big thing in Aveiro is to do a moliceiro tour through the canals. That explains Rick Steves saying that Aveiro is the Venice of Portugal.An old ceramics factory that they repurposed for office space.I have no idea what this is all about.A number of the bridges over the canals are wrapped in ribbon.Homer Simpson and Maggie. What are they doing in Aveiro?
The canal tour was fun, but I firmly believe that Rick Steves is blowing smoke, literally, when he describes Aveiro as the Venice of Portugal.
This is a memorial to the men of Aveiro who lost their lives in World War One. Their names are inscribed on this memorial. Apparently Aveiro lost eight men in World War One. Aveiro is not a small town. When Sara and I visited Beaune, France, which is a small town, they had a memorial for the men of Beaune who did not return from World War One.Almost every male villager in Beaune between the ages of 17 and 30 fought in World War One and most of them did not return. I am not denigrating Aveiro’s losses as a result of the First World War. But Aveiro’s losses pale in comparison to the losses suffered by the citizens of Beaune and every other city, town and village in France.Craft beer is everywhere.Rotary is also everywhere.You see this all over Spain and Portugal. The Spanish and Portuguese people generally refuse to drink the tap water. They claim that if they drink the tap water they will get deathly ill. This is crazy. I have been drinking the tap water since I got here and I have had no GI issues. Can you even imagine the plastic waste these people are generating when they exclusively drink bottled water.Lunch. Fried John Dory with sea rice, which is rice in a broth with shrimp and mussels, and a nice glass of green wine.
After lunch I took the train back to Porto. This evening I am going to get my big suitcase out of storage and pack for the flight home tomorrow. If all goes well I will land in Denver around 6:00 PM tomorrow, Saturday, June 15. I am looking forward to coming home.
For my last meal in Porto I had a suckling pig sandwich.
That’s it from Porto, Portugal. I hope you are having a great day wherever you are.
I've been retired from the Union Pacific Railroad since 2017. I've been planning to walk the Camino for about 6 months and can't wait to get started.
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AbeAndMarkontheCamino 