My name is Sergio,
I work in the IT area helping teams worldwide making better products. Aveiro is my home town. I grew, graduated, and worked in Aveiro for many years. As part of my work, I travel worldwide to engage with customers from all sorts of countries.
I love traveling, I love meeting other cultures... and I love also my home town. Whenever traveling abroad, if I have time, I usually take walking tours to complement my own sightseeing. I found out that this is a great to know more about the history of places and their people, to become aware of interesting stories, and a lot more.
Come explore and uncover together me in a fun yet insightful walking tour, and find out more about Aveiro's history, art, culture, religion, legends, and other interesting stories. I like a good laugh and I like good stories. I like to learn, read, run, and eat, even though that sounds a bit contradictory :)
There are still many Art Nouveau buildings in Aveiro; Aveiro is the biggest Art Noveau city in Portugal where you can enjoy the wonderful façades of these buildings. Other cities (e.g., Porto, Leiria, Lisbon) have also Art Nouveau buildings but not in this quantity and concentration.
One of the most lovely building is the Art Nouveau Museum, an antique house that became the museum for this kind of art/architecture. On the back of the building, there's a nice coffee and bar where you can enjoy a tea or even a gin.
Amazing canals... Aveiro has a close connection with water, the sea, and the salt. The salty river water and the lagoon have been shaping Aveiro across time. The canals within the city remember other cities, such as Venice, but Aveiro is quite different from it except for the romantic environment that is part of its DNA. In the past, salt was produced in large quantities. Nowadays, salt production still persists and if you visit Aveiro, you can still see people working on it. The views are amazing, with or without salt, as the lagoon acts like a mirror. Besides, many birds inhabit these waters, including a large community of flamingos. Many of these places are easily walkable or ridable by bike.
Whenever at Aveiro, you cannot leave without tasting 'ovos moles' (sweet eggs). This is one of the biggest atractions of the city, that you will taste and repeat! The story behind sweet eggs goes back to the time the Monastery of Jesus, nowadays Aveiro's Museum, was still hosting female nuns, couple of centuries ago (probably late XV, early XVI century). Back then, the monastery had many eggs and egg white was used for ironing. There were plenty of egg yolks to foster ideas for a new dessert. And then sweet eggs appeared. Nowadays they are known not only across Portugal but also abroad.
Ovos Moles are usually served as shown in the following photo, using different shapes of white wafer remembering sea forms, such as clams, fish, shells, mussels, wooden barrels, and other (e.g., bottles, chestnuts, walnuts).
On pastry shops, you'll also find Ovos Moles packed in different ways (e.g., 'walnuts of Ovos Moles') and being used as filling for cakes.
There are plenty of amazing street art drawings around the city, all at a walkable distance. These are usually related with city themes (e.g., salt, ovos moles) or people that were important in the city history.
However, you can enjoy other art items whenever walking around. You can expect to see beautiful tiles decorating houses and other buildings, such as the train station, for example.
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To uncover Aveiro many people choose free tours. If you never tried one of them yourself, no worries. This article explains what these tours are and how easy is to book one!
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Why you should visit Aveiro
Aveiro is a unique city in Portugal. Many tourists come to Portugal to see major cities such as Lisbon and Porto, but then they get totally surprised and amazed whenever they discover Aveiro.