Armed with a few tips on where to stop off on the road, Rosie and The Operator started our drive from Porto to Lisbon on a beautiful spring morning.
An hour up the road is Aveiro ‘The Venice of Portugal’….well it did have one canal, that meandered around the small town…and a humpy backed pedestrian bridge….and gondolas. So there Rosie.
It was a beautiful small looking town that has 75,000 people tucked away in its narrow streets. The town is famed for its seaweed and salt production that has kept it alive throughout the ages.
The tourists take a ride in the old seaweed harvesting barges around the canals and it looked liked like a great way to spend a Sunday morning. Hold on though, Rosie has spied a Flea Market and is already being drawn to it…The Operator is audibly groaning.
The Flea Market was huge and OMG the variety and level of old, rusty antique awesomeness was amazing.
Rosie was true to her word and only took pictures with only a slight debate about buying a piece of Traditional Portuguese Pottery. The most beautiful cabbage leaf platter with a delicate snail sitting on the leaf. The Operator talked me out of it…Rosie has regrets now.
The guy selling the pottery had the most colourful display imaginable! But prey tell, ceramic penisis?! Check out the end of the table! There has to be a story there somewhere….
It was a great small town center to wander around and we enjoyed our browsing. Aveiro seemed to be a town on the rise and buildings and houses were being renovated all over the center. Rosie is loving the new modern looking green exterior tiles below…which still manages to look like our families dining room wallpaper from the 80s. Lol.
Driving out, on the edge of town, Rosie couldn’t work out if these were the salt ponds or the seaweed ponds…..maybe best not to know.
The next town we pulled into off the highway was a beach town called Costa Nova. Another small Portuguese town that automatically put a smile on your face when you drove through it as soon as you saw the stripy colourful houses.
This was a fisherman’s village established in the early 19th century as an extension away from the other villages that fished around the lagoon. On one side of the town is the Atlantic Ocean and on the other side is the river canal and lagoon.
Up and down both sides of the water are these wooden pitched roof houses painted in bright cheerful stripes. The colours are so crisp against the blue sky and once again it was nice to wander in the sunshine.
The highway into Lisbon was so quiet with very little traffic. The Operator wondered why we had not seen one single truck on the roads…Sunday? Day of rest we thinks?
We drove right into the center of Lisbon with no troubles and parked the car with the help of our apartment host in an off site car park. The Operator is not sure if he will find his way back to the car as the route the host took back to the apartment when walking, seemed to be a conglomeration of underground tunnels, street elevators and back alleys. Oh well, when we leave we will soon see if we can find the car again.
The apartment is in the heart of the Baixa district with a stunning view from up high out of its French doors and skinny balcony that wraps itself around the frontage. The action going on underneath the windows does not let up day or night. That is our place, the ‘box’ on the edge of the building with the balcony around it. The windows above are another apartment.
Leaning off the balcony and looking left is the Arch of The Rua Augusta, which is the commemorative arch of the cities reconstruction which Rosie will tell you about below.
To the right is the beautifully tiled pedestrianized street of the Rua Augusta stretching up the street as far as the eye can see. Tall beautiful, elegant buildings rise up 5 stories high on each side making a beautiful shady and cool lane way for the shoppers. Buskers play music, living statues and artists ply their work. It is a busy and bustling place at all times of the day. Our birds eye view is amazing and completely silent from the noise below when the doors are shut.
In 1755 most of Lisbon was destroyed by an earthquake and a subsequent tsunami that followed. As Rosie mentions above, the Arch at the end of the street commemorates this date. The sea is right there at the end of street through the arch and this area was totally destroyed. The city was of course rebuilt grander and better than ever. The streets around our apartment were fashioned in a grid style and named after the trades that were allowed to operate there. Hence the names of the apartment’s in our building which correspond with these trades.
Our apartment is designed so chicly, and is named Correerios….which means belt/strap after the Rua de Correerios or ‘The Street of Belt Makers’ which housed the leather workers in the 18th century. Check out the amazing design features of our apartment!
Rosie and The Operator are certainly in the heart of the city and are looking forward to seeing the sights tomorrow. The only thing Rosie didn’t really count on was the scale of Lisbon…..it is huge! How do we make the most of our limited time and cover all the ground we would like to? Rosie hasn’t really thought about that.
Our questions were answered when we bumped into Jose on the street….owner of a tuk tuk, speaker of perfect English, historian, art enthusiast and tour guide all rolled into one. Now we can really look forward to tomorrow and cover all the ground we need too. Come along for the ride!
