July 22. Aveiro and Coimbra

This morning we headed back to the living room for breakfast and made up on what we missed out on yesterday. Then the owner, António Carlos Pereira Nunes da Ponte, came in and walked us over to show the chapel belonging to the manor. The apartment we stayed at was not the guest house. It was for the live-in priest and his servant. The chapel was beautiful.

Antonio told us that estate and surrounding lands belonged to a wealthy local family… The last of the family to live there had a bit of casino habit. They sold off all the lands piece by piece. Estate was the last one to go. When he bought it thirty years ago it was uninhabited: roofs had caved in and it was completely empty. He restored everything and filled it up. After the highway to Porto was built nearby, surrounding lands were developed and apartment buildings had sprang up to house Porto commuters. 

First we went to Aveiro, also known as Venice of Portugal. It is located in a very beautiful region of the country – at the mouth of a large delta. There is also part with dunes. The town itself has a few channels. They have large gondolas that sort of resemble the ones in Italy. First we walked on the North side of town where most of the “regular people” lived, according to the lady from the information office. The area is interesting. Row upon row of clean, immaculate two story houses all next to each other. Canal was very clean and there was a bike path that ran next to it showing excellent example of urban planning. "Regular" of the town looked completely deserted, possibly because everyone was either at church or at a mega flea market on the streets near the canal. Dan made a few finds. 

We tried to go to the Art Nouveau museum located in the beautiful building in one of the squares. We walked inside the courtyard that had a coffee shop and encountered a local guy with bleached blond hair. He said the museum is closed and will open maybe in 30 minutes. It was 11:45 at the time. I guess the opening time is at 12:15. He was pretty unfriendly and while he was walking us out demonstrated closed door means the museum is closed. Based on seeing what’s inside so far, it looks like he is running the place primarily for the benefit of the coffee shop.

So next, we went to the other side of the river and checked out the local Mother of Aveiro. Nice, but not too memorable. For the final checkmark we went to the cathedral or Se. It was surprisingly small, unpretentious and nice. And it had very interesting looking display outside the main hall: a painting in the style of Bosch and several statues of turbaned men and women with covered heads gathered around Jesus. They looked Moorish. 

We were running late so we pushed further South missing several sites along the way and a bit past one in the afternoon arrived to Coimbra. Google maps brought us to the narrowest steepest portion of the old town. When we finally emerged at the top with aching muscles, the view was simply magical.

Coimbra was the home to one of the oldest European universities. The upper part of the town houses monumental complex of monumental buildings (yes, 2 monumentals). Huge white squares with statues and fountains, the views of the city below. It was really amazing.

We had some practical matters to address first. We were hungry again and it was Isabella’s nap time. And we only had 2.5 hours so spare. After aimlessly wondering around trying to find any place that served food, apparently not an easy feat with the school being out for the summer, we turned to the girl in the Gedal library. She gave us the map and pointed to where we have to go to find some restaurants. We also bought the tickets to see St. John’s library, St. Michael’s chapel, and the clock tower.

So we first ran 125 stairs down to the lower part of the town to grab a bite at a tapas place. Poor waiter serving the entire restaurant was probably innerved watching the group of jumping psychos who demanded the food and check immediately while barely glancing at the menu. In barely 45 minutes we ran back up. It took 30 minutes to fry chorizo and octopus, but they probably have one cook too.

A guy from the information office went with us to let us into the tower and upstairs. Georgia scaled 176 steps without a word. That was the highest point of the city. The photos do not do it justice. St. Michael’s was next – it was very impressive. The first church completely done in tiles. And even organ was done in an interesting way in that additional pipes stuck out perpendicularly to core pipes.

Next, John's library. They only allow visitors every 20 minutes to try to maintain specific temperature and humidity. The walls of the library are four meters thick and that should help somewhat. We waited outside and they let us in and locked the door.

Inside was the OMG moment. I won't try to write up a description here either. The one above does not cut it either. And the audio guide we got sort of jumbled out random pieces of information. Here are a few images from Google. Just come and see it for yourself. We walked around the surrounding buildings looking at a giant judicial hall with kings’ portraits, a hall with rector portraits, and other rooms. And then ran back to our car. If we had more time it would be great to see more of the city.

The ride back was OK. Isabella finally went to sleep and caught some rest. We are very impressed with the toll roads here. The quality of the roads is impeccable with clear signs and all. Service areas are done very well. We went to a few of them. There are bathrooms, little stores, ATM machines. No something we were immediately expecting. The luxury is not cheap. A ride from Lisbon to Porto was over twenty euro.  

It was a very nice weekend. The North of the country is full of the interesting places to visit and we are very happy that we got so see some of them. There were a few firsts. Like Isabella's first indefinite article "Blin," which should entertain Russian speakers. And us staying in a 17th century manor. And visiting one of the oldest universities in the world. And having a little French woman.