Month: October 2017

Aveiro isn’t all canals and salt.  It also has a lot of public art to increase the happiness factor in visiting and/or living here.  This (public art) was one of the first things we noticed upon our arrival, as we were greeted by the square-face sculpture below.  We saw similar sculptures all over town.  These are the work of Luís Queimadela, a Portugese artist based in São Pedro do Sul.  The collection of 14 sculptures throughout Aveiro is titled “InVitro” and was installed in 2009.

We obviously need to return to Aveiro, as we didn’t find the whole set!  We did stumble on some other pieces though —

 In addition to sculptural art, there was unusual brickwork, painting, tile mosaics, etc.  Aveiro is such a beautiful city anyway, and the art just adds to its charm.

The lovely Aveiro, Portugal is the Venice of Portugal with its network of canals that originally facilitated the commerce of salt for the area.  There are 4 canals — Canal do Côjo, Canal Central, Canal das Prâmides, and Canal de S. Roque.  Ten companies now vie to provide narrated rides for tourists, making the canals an active, vibrant place.  The rides cost about $12 per person and last approximately 1 hour.  We enjoyed both watching the boats from our Airbnb room (gorgeous! Best one yet), walking along the water, and finally as a participant.  The boat “drivers” keep things fun by interacting frequently with individuals on the other boats as well as people watching on the shore.  

While the salt trade in Aveiro is much reduced, there are still salt beds being worked.

In addition to Aveiro’s canals and art, it also has some beautiful architecture and parks.  (The food isn’t bad either, especially the ovos moles — a lovely little sweet that is basically an egg yolk confection in a paper-looking wrap in the shape of a shell.  This is why we walk around so much — to either “earn” our treats or work them off.). But back to the buildings —

A very attractive building close to our Airbnb

The former rail station, located right next to the new one

The first building you see on the way out of the train station (right past the block-headed sculpture). It just seemed so incredibly white!

While the hotel looks a bit boxy, it has a lovely bar over looking the lake where you can watch the boats go by and the people playing in the park. You can also see a bit of the I love Aveiro sign, and a another sculpture near the lake.

This former ceramic factory is the only factory building in this once industrial area that was retained. It has been repurposed for governmental offices. All of the factories still in existence have been moved to an industrial park outside of town to make space for the lake, park, and residential/retail developments along the canal.

The former canal administration building that now houses governmental offices



The church of Misericórdia dating from the 17th century

The beautiful art nouveau building that now houses the City Museum

Aveiro’s city center has a number of buildings in the art nouveau style. This building is the Art Nouveau Museum which honors the Portugese heritage of this design style.

Chapel of São Gonçalinho

Just some houses that we liked

Traditionally colored Portugese facade — gold over blue

An attractive building in the modern part of town

The Santa Joana Museum of Aveiro which contains collections of religious art in a former Dominican monastery

The Aveiro Cathedral next to the Aveiro Museum

We also explored a little bit of the campus of the University of Aveiro.  It is only 40 years old with 12,500 students and offers 58 baccalaureate, 40 masters and 25 PhD programs.

One of the many signs up announcing the 40th anniversary

One of the science buildings on campus

The University of Aveiro Water Tank

From the University, we walked back to our Airbnb through a lovely park.

A little lake with a duck house

A bridge across the lake

The tree- lined street that splits the park

A fountain by the tennis and pickle ball courts

Plan A for our second trip to Porto was to take a day trip into the Duoro Valley to see some of the wineries that make the country’s renowned drink.  However, we didn’t realize how far Porto was from the valley (about 2 hours by car).  A day trip was definitely an option, but after having spent a full day in a bus, neither of us was eager to spend 4 hours in a train (solo journey) or Van (group tour), so we decided to just enjoy the day in Porto and make another visit to the Port houses across the Duoro River in the Vila Nova de Gaia.

We did a bit of shopping (both window and the real kind) in the morning with a return trip to the Bolhão Market and the St. Catherine pedestrian street area.

So after a hard morning of shopping, we thought we’d try our luck getting into one or more of the port houses in Vila Nova de Gaia.  The area was hopping, but we managed to try 2 new houses  — Taylor’s and Ramos Pinto. We had done a tour and tasting at Graham’s last year.

Other photos from our time in Porto — 



Bob and I left Bilbao on a rainy Monday by Flixbus.  We got a great price — $79 for both of us.  The bus was new and the seats were comfy but while GoogleMaps told us that a car ride from Bilbao, Spain to Porto, Portugal would be 6 hours our bus ride was scheduled (and did take) about 12.  Yea, a whole lot of butt-in-seat time with a crew of four who did a whole lot of VERY LOUD talking to each other or their cell phones.  We didn’t get many announcements for stops either, including the one we took to put more air in the tires and wash the bus.  They did announce the “20” minute stop for lunch which actually lasted 50 minutes cuz what’s a good, long lunch without a smoke after?  On the very upside, we got a great tour of the gorgeous northern Spanish coast and countryside — see below.

Anyhoo, it makes for a great story, and we arrived safely into Porto about 8.  It was close to 9 by the time we walked to and checked into our accommodation, so we ended up grabbing dinner at the restaurant next door where we were staying.  There, we had a good time trying to order from the proprietor in a mixture of English, Portugese, and Spanish.  He was very nice, and Bob made a new friend, as he does in these situations.

The next morning we decided to walk to the Porto Beach, as we had not visited that area on our visit in September of 2016 prior to our Olhao, Portugal house sit.  On the walk towards the coast we ended up walking from sun into coastal fog at the beach that didn’t clear until about 1:30.

We spent almost 4 hours of our first full day in Bilbao at the Guggenheim Museum, designed by Frank Gehry.  The ticket came with an audio guide that provided information on both the building and art.  This is the 20th anniversary year for the museum.



After the museum and again the following day, we continued our exploration of the city including two self-guided walking tours — The Gran Via and Rationalism.  Both days were rainy, but it was more of a heavy mist than downpours, so pretty easy to negotiate.

 After our explorations on the town level, we headed up into the hills to get a view from above.

Bob and I flew from Valencia to Bilbao, Spain on Vueling Airlines, a European discount carrier.  The flight was just over an hour, and we were able to easily travel to and from the airports on public transportation — to the Valencia airport by metro and from the Bilbao airport by bus.  After arriving into Bibao city center and a 20 minute walk to our pensión in Bilbao, we were ready to start exploring what looked to be a beautiful city on a gorgeous day.

Bilbao is located in the northwest portion of Spain in the Basque region.  It has a population of about 345,000.  It has a strong economic history centered on its port, but we loved it’s amazing architecture and the multiple levels on which the city is built.  While we knew about the Guggenheim Museum, there are interesting buildings all over the city.  There are also pinxhos — a little bite of food that are very attractively crafted and displayed.   We hope to return.

We started our visit with a boat ride on the Bilbao River which feeds into the Cantabrian Sea and the Bay of Biscay.  The ride gave us a great way to quickly see the beautiful promenades and architecturally interesting buildings on either side of the river.  The boat narration included the names of the architects for many of the buildings and the awards each architect had one (no pressure designing anything for this town).  We just really liked the attractiveness of the buildings and area and the mix of both historical and modern.

Some highlights of the boat ride —

 

After the boat ride, we did a little walk around both the old and new sections of town.  We we’re charmed.



Bob and I split from Split (sorry, had to do that) on Sunday, September 17, by plane to spend four full days in Valencia, Spain.  I had studied in Spain during the 2nd semester of my junior year in college and have wanted to return ever since.  After (gulp!) 30 years the city seemed familiar yet very, very different.  It has grown up very nicely.  I lived with a local family while in school.  I don’t know if there were tourists then, and I just wasn’t aware (too busy with college extracurricular activites), but it definitely has its share of tourists now.  There is also a lot more to see now.  I also loved the increased ease of running–and the number of runners.  And don’t get me started on the paella!  

Since this time around we were staying in an apartment on the edge of the Old City, we spent some time exploring this active area.

The next day on our walkabout we hit the Mercado Central, or Central Market.  It was a great mix of produce, breads, meats and cheeses, as well as prepared foods.  We decided we couldn’t leave without buying our meal for that night (gazpacho and a Spanish tortilla) since everything looked so good.

Other points of interest in the Old City —

 

 

Some other buildings, etc. in the Old City that caught our eye —

One of the Valencian festivals that I remember most from my time studying there was Las Falles.  It’s a two week-long festival that commemorates Saint Joseph, although I mostly just remember it as time to stay out late, eat free paella from neighborhood pans (we each carried around our own spoon), the monuments built for Las Falles, and the end of celebration fires.  Las Falles refers both to the celebration itself as well as to the monuments that are constructed (and later burnt) for the celebration.  The Falles are built around that year’s theme and consist of Ninots (figures).  Each year a committee recommends a set number of Ninots to be saved from the fires.  The one(s) actually saved are those that receive the most votes from the public.  Bob and I visited the museum that houses the saved Ninots and provides an overview of the festival.

One free museum that we happened upon on our walk around Old a town one day was The Corpus Museum also known as The House of the Rocks.  This building was bought by the Valencia City Council in 1446 to house the ceremonial carts (rocks) used in the city’s annual Corpus Christi festivities.  The festivities take place on the Sunday closest to the 60th day following Easter (per papal instructions from the XIII century).  The carts are Valencia’s emblem of their celebration.  There are currently 11 rocks that have been elaborately crafted over many years, with the oldest completed in 1512 and the newest in 2001. They are brought out of the museum for viewing on the Friday night before the official celebration.  The Sunday festivities consist of thrwe different parades throughout the day on Sunday.

Since we had seen the beautiful beaches and coastline in Croatia, we had to see what Valencia had to offer.  I also wanted to walk back from the beach on the road that I lived on as a student — the Avenue of the Port.  We walked down through the gardens (see prior post) which got us very close to the beach through the lovely arts and sciences complex (see next post).  It was a lovely day, but I didn’t recognize much from “my” old street — I guess 30 years and some urban renewal efforts will do that.