DECEMBER 2021
Porto itself is a great city to visit, but it is also worth it to explore its surroundings. From Porto you can do many great day trips; Aveiro and Costa Nova amongst many of your options. Aveiro and Costa Nova are located very close to each other and about one hour of driving from Porto. If you are looking for a few beach days, this is a charming area. Please note that you will be swimming in the Atlantic Ocean and that it will be much colder than the Mediterranean Sea.
Why visit Aveiro?
Aveiro is known as the Venice of Portugal, it is a very colorful town with lots of canals and you will be able to go on a moliceiro boat. These boats were used to collect algae from the lagoon in Aveiro, but have now become a tourist attraction. I loved spotting these colorful boats and preferred photographing them to joining them for a ride. I could definitely see how Aveiro is being compared to Venice and Murano, though there were much less canals.
Though I hadn’t heard much about Aveiro, apparently many people had, because it was quite busy when we visited in the afternoon. So definitely not a hidden gem. However, if you venture away from the canals, the streets quickly become more quiet. I particularly liked the streets that were just away from the city center, as I was able to spot many tiled buildings and churches that you could have all to yourself. The train station is one of the main sights of Aveiro, as it is covered in blue Portuguese tiles, but we didn’t walk all the way over there as we explored the quiet streets instead.
We parked our van just outside the city center, make sure you have some coins for parking.
Why visit Costa Nova do Prado?
I discovered Costa Nova on Instagram, as the striped beach houses are a super cute backdrop for pictures. You know I have a thing with colorful houses, so I just had to visit Costa Nova. I expected that taking pictures would be very difficult, because of its Instagram popularity, but it actually was enjoyable. It wasn’t too crowded, despite it being high season, and people were respectful and didn’t walk into each others pictures. You will find the colorful striped houses at Av. Jose Estevao, so not directly at the beach. The beach is located at the other side of town, it was a very flat white sand beach, I am sure it is very lovely on a sunny day, but we didn’t have amazing weather. The beach is very nice for having some food as well, as you will find many beach bars here. It was pretty easy to find parking in Costa Nova and if you are lucky it is free.
