The shades of Portugal

My Masters’ program was hosting a spring meeting in Aveiro, Portugal for us students and we decided that we couldn’t ignore Porto and Lisbon while we would be so close to them. So, our initial plan to spend 2 nights in Aveiro for academic purposes turned into a weeklong vacation with a lot of travel in Portugal.

While we were missing a lot of classes back in Hamburg, the whole trip turned out to be very worthwhile especially because we were escaping the not-so-charming weather in Hamburg for some good sun, sea and sand; and we were meeting a lot of friends from the Masters’ program in Aveiro.

So, although I didn’t spend a lot of time in each place I was in, and I couldn’t actually get the real feel of the cities, I still managed to learn a few things about Portugal and the cities I stayed in, had a few new first times and gobbled up good experiences from the South of Europe >>

1       Walking tours

These free tours given by charismatic young people (sometimes who were locals) of the city, where you walk around mostly the central parts were amazing. They covered everything interesting, from history, art, music to food. And you could ask anything you wanted. They would give recommendations to good restaurants, bars, shopping areas and other touristic places, and in the end of the tour, you usually had a list of things to do before leaving. The best part of the tour was that you could set the value of the tour yourself and tip as much as you thought was worth your time. And, you meet new people too. I learned a lot about the history of Porto and Lisbon, and ever since those walking tours, I’ve decided to never miss an opportunity for such tours in other cities.

2       Porto

Porto was my first stop in Portugal, and I stayed there for a day before moving to Aveiro for the meeting. I was immediately in love with the city because it was so much green and lively, and the weather was perfect, and it seemed like everyone there were there to have a good time. There was music everywhere!! I heard bagpipers being played for the first time and it was amazing. The atmosphere was magical. Right in one corner, you could see people playing music and others dancing to it, and in the other, you could see people blowing air bubbles in the city squares while children and adults tried to pop them. Its one of the rare places I’ve been to that had happiness embedded into it.

A guy blowing bubbles in a square in Porto

Porto, around the riverfront

A church in the city, the tiles very characteristic to the city

Porto Central Station

3       Aveiro

My next stop was Aveiro, a small city to the south of Porto was an escape from the touristic Porto. The city was peaceful and picturesque, and there were canals that crisscrossed the entire city I had never known that Aveiro was called the Venice of Portugal, and I found out why. The Moliceiro boat trips through the canals across the colorful houses and buildings, below the bridges covered the entire city and was fun to say the least, and although I’ve never been to Venice before, this trip gave me a pretty good reason now to go there. All in all, Aveiro seemed like a student city, and the prices in bars and restaurants there were incredibly cheap (probably the reason we had a very interesting night in Aveiro). It had a student atmosphere to it and it felt like the whole city was a huge university, which was nice.

A factory turned restaurant in Aveiro

Boat trips in the city canal, Aveiro

4  The beach-house in Porto

The idea of the beach house was basically just to get together and party. So, we were almost thirty people, had booked three beach houses, and had a common intension to blow off some steam (after two days of meeting and receiving a lot of information, it was the perfect time to give the brain some rest) and have a good time (which we did). We basically didn’t do anything the whole day except chill by the house and the beach. The water was freezing cold so most of us couldn’t actually go to the water (I say most because some of my friends were crazy enough to swim in the extremely cold water). The day ended with a very good barbeque dinner, where we had long conversations with all the people we had grown so fond of, knowing that we might not meet again in a very long time. It was here where we diverged afterwards, after saying our goodbyes and hoping that we would see each other soon again.

We got a pretty good deal for this amazing beach house!

Flatmates!!

5       Lisbon

Last but not the least, my trip took me to the capital of Portugal, Lisbon. And for me, it was like we saved the best for last.

Yes, Lisbon was my favorite city out of the three. Firstly, because it had hills. As it turns out, Lisbon is known as the city of seven hills, and its no surprise that it kind of reminded me of Kathmandu. The hills more or less surrounded the city, and the hills were a maze of narrow streets, houses and staircases. So, there would always be surprises waiting for you at every turn of every street across the hills where there was open space because they presented magnificent views of the city.

Another reason was Alfama, one of the neighborhoods there that didn’t have any bus or metro services and even private vehicle transports because the streets were simply too narrow. “You will, with no doubt be lost for hours in the Alfama maze, but being lost in Alfama is a time well spent”, said the guide who gave us the walking tour, and if I did have more time in Lisbon, I would go back to explore the streets even more.

Like Porto, Lisbon had a very vibrant and musical atmosphere. Lisbon was probably even livelier, with music in every corner and every square around the main city, with musicians, puppeteers, artists, and plain crazy people wearing weird costumes. And the difference, I think, was that while Porto felt only touristic to me, where you couldn’t actually step off that tourist boundary and explore the real city, Lisbon offered way more than the usual touristic attractions. We went from city tours, to wine tastings to pub crawls to sightseeing all in the span of only two full days. And the two days were extremely memorable.

Praça do Comércio, Lisbon

Around Lisbon City Center

Narrow streets near Alfama

Street Art in Alfama

The narrow alleys would always open up to views like this

Lisbon by night

So, as I sit down in my room right now, finishing off all the good words from my limited vocabulary to describe my experience in Portugal, I realize with each second how much I want to go back there again. Well, apparently I am very vulnerable to having attachments with places, but attachments for all the right reasons nonetheless. I had only experienced the northern, colder parts of Europe, and Portugal gave me a sneak-peak of what else Europe had to offer, and well, it seems exciting.

Shenanigans on the last night at Lisbon