Aveiro, Portugal

What do we think of Portugal so far? We think it is very calm.  We think it is the opposite of all the Latin American countries we have been to.  Our travel background is chaotic, sweaty, filthy, unpredictable.  Portugal is not any of those things.  No street dogs, no police with shotguns on street corners, no trash, no blasting music from shops, no bull horns shouting from cars, no unknown bus schedules, and no touts swarming us when we get off the train.  I just had to get that out of my system, and be finished comparing this trip to the others.  

After a punishing overnight flight and landing at 11:00 am, everything was very straightforward after we cleared customs at the Lisbon airport.  Stop at the ATM, head for the metro that connects the airport to the city transport system, buy a loadable metro card from the easy kiosk, head to the platform and wait for the train to Lisbon Oriente Station where we will catch out train to Averio with tickets bought weeks ago on the app. 

Easy as pie, a short 2 hour journey with no paper or electronic tickets needed. Just showed the conductor my passport and he checks that I'm in the system.  Even wifi in the train.  Gosh.

We chose Averio  as our first  stop for a few reasons.  First of all, we don't like to spend our first days in the city we land in. We like to fly in and get out, and adjust to a new country in a smaller town.  We save the big city for last when we have our bearings.  Averio is a cute cobble stone town with an odd 60's mod vibe blended in.  A perfect example is the hotel we are staying in, the VIC Arts House, our room is $38 a night with a shared bath and kitchen access.

It's all mod 60's and 70's with an artsy vibe.  In the off season it hosts an artists in residence program which sounds pretty dang cool.  We are saving money by making our own  breakfasts and dinners and just eating lunches out.  

Food wise, the portions are enormous and the prices about the same as home.  So at least we just need to order one meal and it's more than enough to share with leftovers to take home. We've had the famous Franchesena which is a crazy sand which with bread, ham, egg, veal, sausage, topped with a fried egg, smothered in cheese, and bathing in a creamy tomato and wine sauce surrounded by French fries.  Heart attack sandwhich but really good.

I downloaded google translate to use offline so that's handy when deciphering a menu.  Yesterday we ordered the fried fish with rice and beans.  We were caught by surprise when the waiter brought a platter of narrow 6 inch fishes that had been fried whole, minus the guts.  We watched other people eating them and noted that they entire thing was eaten, head and bones included.  True the bones were pretty soft, but we took out some spines anyway.  We could not accept eating the fish head tho and cut each one off, along with the tail.

Averio has canals that have tourist boat rides.  We thought we would give it a go but decided not to spend the 25$ on a cheesy boat ride.  We walked out to the salt production area and got schooled about the product the region is famous for.  

We've spent a bunch of time wandering around admiring and photographing architecture and churches.  Lots of buildings are covered in hand pained tiles, and the churches date to the 1400's. The weather is completely perfect, sunny in the low 70's in the day and low 60's at night.  Not a drop of humidity in the air.

That's some Baroque frippary!