Located about 10 minutes from Aveiro and intrinsically connected to the Ria and inevitably facing the sea, the municipality of Ílhavo has in this connection its main characteristic, which distinguishes it from the other either by its geography and by its history.
Ílhavo is pointed out by several authors as being descended from legendary navigators, possibly Phoenicians, Greeks or ancient navigators from the North and even Roman seas, who entered through the mouth of the Vouga and settled on its shores. Today, it is a municipality in undeniable expansion.
History, festivals and pilgrimages, crafts, heritage, gastronomy, sun and sea, leisure time, are some notes of routes that you can find and enjoy in this land that has "The Sea by Tradition", special piece of its history and its natural condition, that make it the Portuguese capital of cod, ex-libris of local gastronomy.
In the two canals of the Ria de Aveiro that cross the Municipality (the Mira Canal and the Ílhavo Canal or Rio Bôco), nautical activities, fishing, bird watching and other natural values provide unique moments.
In the sands of the beaches of Barra and Costa Nova, the sea joins the land in a unique and beautiful way, being a pretext of multiple uses, always under the light, color and reference of the Barra Lighthouse and the Palheiros da Costa Nova.
The Ílhavo Maritime Museum shares the epic history of cod fishing on the line, and the Santo André Museum Ship tells the life of the drag.
Culture is lived with intensity in various spaces, such as the House of Culture of Ílhavo, the Gafanha da Nazaré Ideas Factory, the Arts Laboratory - Teatro Vista Alegre or Cais Criativo Costa Nova. The Municipal Library is even a good example of the recovery of the "Palace of Alqueidão", seventeenth century building, whose façade can now be appreciated in all its beauty.
On the facades of the older houses, the Alminhas are guarded and the past connected to the sea is mirrored in the tile, where Art Nova invokes aureeus times forged by emigration.
In places of worship, one breathes the devotion that has always been taken to the high seas in this region. In Ílhavo, memory, fused in bronze or embedded in stone, is combined with modernity. Typical figures and essential elements of the Municipality appear immortalized in statues, which the population proudly respects.
See the interview with Fernando Caçoilo, president of the Municipal Chamber of Ílhavo.
Source: Ílhavo Town Hall