Aveiro colors, cont.

To continue our tour of the brilliance of Aveiro:

It is practically required to take a canal tour on a moliceiro. Here’s a tip: avoid boat operations on the main canal. That’s where all of the tourists go, and the boats are crowded. We picked ours up on a small canal arm seaward of the main one (where I took the photo of the house in Ukraine colors), and were the only two people on it. We received a personalized, one-hour tour for five euros each, which was so ridiculously cheap that we tipped 50 percent.

On our boat, the décor didn’t stop at the raised bow and stern sections. It was also detailed on the inside, including this gorgeously disguised storage compartment in the bow. I love the way the hinges are included in the painting.

Our guide told us “rumor had it” that this was Salazar’s summer home at one time. It certainly is in a great location, directly on one of the main canals. And the paintwork…!

Aveiro is full of art. I was struck by the tile art on this wall, and how the artist conveyed such diverse subjects using exactly the same circular form.

I wanted this one on my own wall. If it’s not meant to be a Mola mola, it should be!

This isn’t in Aveiro, but nearby, in a beach town called Praia da Costa Nova do Prado. The striped (wooden! in Portugal!) old houses are only a small part of the riverfront, but their influence is seen throughout the town, where “normal” brick and plaster houses are often painted in narrow stripes.

A couple of blocks away from the riverfront, we found this ultramodern house sporting stripes in a rather unusual way. Though it is the opposite of charming, I was taken with the camouflaged steps.

We arrived in Costa Nova in the late afternoon, and somehow found ourselves leaving at the same time as everyone else. The queue to get out of town was phenomenal. Dang, we forgot about beach towns and their end-of-day traffic snarls. We breathed a sigh of relief upon entering the autoestrada, and waved at Aveiro as we headed past. Costa Nova was fun for a single visit, but we’ll be coming back to Aveiro. I still have to try the ovos moles, after all.