Aveiro

Flat bottomed boats with comic paintings on the prow work a 45 minute loop of the canals. The owner chooses the image, and political jokes sit alongside plain rude ones.

Wooden huts that began as fishermen's stores stand in one row that faces the sea. They are repainted as the colour fades, so the width and shade of the stripes keep shifting.

Square pans beside the canal are still raked by hand. On a summer afternoon the water pulls back and a thin crust of salt flowers on the surface.

A former convent that keeps its eighteenth century carving and gilded chapel in place. The marble tomb of a princess takes up a room on its own.

At 62m this is the tallest lighthouse in the country, with 271 steps inside. It opens on Wednesday afternoons only, so check which day you are going.

West of the canal about twenty decorated houses remain from merchants of the early twentieth century. One is open inside as a museum with its tiles and staircase untouched.

The lagoon is shallow with no current, so a first time paddler can reach the reed beds. Come close to where the waterbirds have settled and the whole group lifts at once.

A porcelain works founded in 1824 grew into a village, and the museum and old workers' houses are still there. A warehouse beside the plant sells the seconds cheaply.

A small crossing whose railing is packed with coloured ribbons. The habit of tying them is recent, so none of the knots are old.

A spit reached only by boat, where dunes run on behind the pines. It is a reserve, so walking off the boardwalk is not allowed.

The old station of 1916, its outer walls covered in blue tiles of local scenes. Moliceiro boats, Costa Nova beach and salt pan workers each get a panel. Trains now leave from the new station next door, and the old building stays for show.

An iron-roofed fish hall beside the canal and the square around it. Mornings bring lagoon and sea fish onto the slabs; by evening the bars and restaurants around the square set tables outside. Morning market and nightlife share the same few cobbles.

In Ilhavo, on the way to Costa Nova, it tells the story of fishermen who sailed to Newfoundland and Greenland for cod. A row of dories, the tiny wooden boats each man fished from alone, fills one hall. A separate aquarium keeps live cod.

A cod trawler that worked the North Atlantic grounds, moored at Gafanha da Nazare as a museum. You walk through the deck gear, the hold where fish were salted and the crew's bunks. It is run as an annexe of the Ilhavo maritime museum.