My Escapes Portugal Another Lovely Trip to Portugal! Aveiro Aveiro Day Trip The Beautiful Historic Centre of Aveiro

The Beautiful Historic Centre of Aveiro

The water channels and the trendy areas of the historic district of Aveiro attract most visitors. But there's a lot more to Aveiro than what most people see and what you can most often see depicted in photos.

It'd split the historic centre to the northern area (most common amongst visitors) and the area around the Câmara Municipal.

The latter has nice quiet streets and a beautiful square with a green area around. It's frequently overlooked by those who come here...

I'll try depicting some of the most important and most beautiful buildings and I'll even mention a number of streets, which I think you shouldn't leave out!

In order to get to the city's old centre, you'll need to reach the Praça Humberto Delgado. But, of course, there are other ways.

You can then head either to the northern (more vast, more popular old area) or south, to the (previously mentioned) Câmara Municipal area.

Wandering in the old town, right on the Rua João Mendonça there is this rather small, awe-inspiring light-blue Art Nouveau building (photos on the left and below).

The Museum of Art Nouveau (Museu Arte Nova) is a café and a museum.

Very beautiful outside, but not very impressive architecturally inside - besides the base floor.

Inside you can see projections of Art Nouveau-related documentary films, as well as old drawings, schemes, photos and more... All about this architectural style.

For more photos, including interior takes, I recommend this page on PortugalConfidential.com but don't forget the Casa de Arte Nova official site's gallery.

The entire old town is beautiful, so I recommend a thorough exploration.

One area, a bit away from the core, was particularly interesting.
I'm talking about the western parts, west of the Cais dos Mercantéis street.

The beautiful building above is found on the Rua João Afonso.

The interesting combination of striking strong yellow and dark blue - I've seen it so often on Portuguese buildings.

Further to the east - on the same street (Rua João Afonso), you will find this area (two photos below)...

Very well-maintained buildings behind a row of tall palm trees.

What I love about Aveiro is that it's quiet. You can walk for hours, take light strolls and find benches for taking a rest.

The buildings in the old town are rather mixed from the point-of-view of architectural styles.

There are several quiet streets in this northwestern area of the old town.

There was very little traffic, movement or noise in this part of the city.

Just to mention a few streets from this northwestern area...

Rua das Tricanas, Rua das Velas, Rua de Abel Ribeiro, Rua dos Arrais, Rua do Lavadoiro.

I recognized Beaux Arts, Art Nouveau and a plethora of azulejo tile-covered buildings.

Interesting about central Aveiro's buildings was the fact that many of the tile-covered buildings were actually green, brown or multi-colour tile-covered.

Exploring the old town required a lot more time that I had previously anticipated. I tend to check out each individual building, analyzing the smallest visual details.

The building above is a café/bar covered with tiles from top to bottom.

Although, from the distance it seemed light-brownish, after getting closer to it - only then was I able to admire the fine details of its blue and yellow-coloured tiles.

Perfectly fine-details were printed on these tiles...

If you want to see a large number of older buildings, then go look in the area around and between the two churches of São Gonçalo and São Gonçalino and the square called Largo Magalhães.

This is where the larger part, the eastern part of the old town is found.

See more photos taking in various parts of central Aveiro, below...

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