Corinne CrawfordI finished packing my stuff and walked to the subway station to go back to the train station to catch my train to Aveiro, my next stop. I had made the decision, both based on my struggle to make plans for Morocco and now my minor throat infection, to skip Morocco on this trip and save it for the future when I would have more time to plan. So I was going to just visit a bunch of small towns in Portugal for the rest of my trip which means my tourist visa for the EU would expire at the end of November. I researched and bought my ticket back to Detroit from Faro in Portugal for the 25th and it was sort of sad to have a known end date to this trip. I could keep going indefinitely and know that as soon as I am able, meaning another 90 days have passed, I will return and continue journey.
So Aveiro, it’s a smaller town on the coast that supposedly has canals like Venice. I was again renting an apartment but this time through Booking.com. They have now started to list accomodations similar to Airbnb’s. I had gotten the check in instructions from the host by WhatsApp and easily found the apartment just a 6 minute walk from the train station. The keys were in a lock box on the exterior and I grabbed them and took the elevator to the 4th floor. It was quite a large apartment but over the course of the few day I was there, I noticed that the sound really traveled between floors and apartments and in the hallway you could hear other peoples televisions and I definitely heard the kids running upstairs in the apartment above mine. But it wasn’t’s intolerable. I went to the grocery store about a 15 minute walk away and stocked up on my basics to make grilled cheese sandwiches, eggs and yogurt and bought myself a bottle of wine. I decided to just go for a pizza that night and then had some leftovers for the next day’s lunch.
There really weren’t many sites to see in Aveiro.
Of course there were some churches and the canals and the old town and I did some wandering the next day and decided to go out on the town as it was Friday night. The place seemed deserted, guess that is what happens in a small town outside of the tourist season. Watch this video with the sound on. 🙂
But I found an open pub that said they had American style burgers so I popped in and ordered a beer and a burger. Europe may do healthcare better but they really fail at burgers. It wasn’t terrible but I have yet to have a burger in Europe that didn’t fall apart and slide around making a horrible mess. Of course, I think I have only had 2 or 3 burgers since I arrived in Europe but they all have the same problem. I stopped for one last beer at a nice lounge that overlooked the canal before going back to the apartment.
On my way to the lounge,I noticed several younger folks wearing brown and black capes. It was after Halloween so I was not sure what was going on and then I remembered that the tour guide in Porto had explained that there is some sort of university orientation/hazing where the upper class an dress up kind of Harry Potter style and have the underclassmen perform all sorts of humiliating tasks throughout the town. I did not see any of that but it was still early so perhaps that was what was going to be taking place later that night.
The next day was sunnier and I went to several of the churches and then treated myself to a ride on the gondola in the canals.
Now I have never been to Venice but I am guessing this is not like Venice. There really was just one canal with one offshoot from that but it was nice to hear some of the history of the town including the fact that the canals were built for the salt trade. Aveiro’s biggest product was salt and the canals were used to transport the salt to the sea for export. There were also several bridges crossing the canals that have become friendship or lover’s bridges where you go with your friend or significant other, write your names on a ribbon and tie it to the bridge. Similar to the love lock bridge in France.
I had some fish for lunch because that is what you do in a seaside town and then just spent the next day working as the following day would be a travel day. I was headed to Tomar.