After another leisurely morning, we left Coimbra and headed North to the cute town of Aveiro. To be fair, Dave woke up and ran. I was the lazy one that slept until 10am. I've been averaging 9 hours of sleep a night, and it's awesome. Averio is referred to as the Venice of Portugal. There are canals throughout the town and colorful boats dotting the water every few feet.
Our first order of business was to do laundry - we were in desperate need. The laundromats in town were closed for the weekend so we drove out to a suburban mall that the hotel staff recommended. That place ended up being a dry cleaner and we were looking for a self-service laundromat. The ladies at the dry cleaner didn't speak much English but we were able to stumble through with their broken English and my toddler-level Spanish skills and figure out a place nearby that had what we were looking for. It took even longer to figure out how to run the machines once we made it there. Thankfully, our clothes came out clean and we didn't break anything.
After our laundry adventure, we walked around the town, grabbed a snack and some beer, before heading back to the hotel so Dave could get a massage.
For dinner we went to a restaurant above the local fish market. They brought out examples of the fresh fish to help us figure out what to order. I had the seabass and as I like to put it, 'dissected it' for dinner. I'm usually pretty anti-whole fish and don't like to mess around with bones. I was pretty proud of myself for tackling this beast, and Dave was very supportive, as well. He had a squid and prawn skewer, which also required dissecting. The fish available has changed some now that we're in Northern Portugal. No more fresh tuna and swordfish and more smaller, flakier fish on the menu. The seafood has been quite tasty along the way. And I'm appreciative for the abundance of potatoes here. Just about every meal comes with potatoes in some format. Love me some taters.
