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.
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| A guy blowing bubbles in a square in Porto |
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| Porto, around the riverfront |
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| A church in the city, the tiles very characteristic to the city |
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| 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.
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| A factory turned restaurant in Aveiro |
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| 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.
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| We got a pretty good deal for this amazing beach house! |
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Flatmates!!
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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.
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| Praça do Comércio, Lisbon |
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| Around Lisbon City Center |
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| Narrow streets near Alfama |
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| Street Art in Alfama |
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| The narrow alleys would always open up to views like this |
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| 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.
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| Shenanigans on the last night at Lisbon |
