Águeda
Urban art and sustainability
Photo © Mário Abreu
Why visit Águeda
Águeda is internationally know for its art installations. Since 2012, the image of the colourful umbrellas, as well as our festival AgitÁgueda – Art Festival, have brought thousands of visitors from all around the world to our small Portuguese city, looking for our urban art itinerary that counts with more than 30 permanent art installations.
In the midst of all our colours, there’s one that sticks out: green. Our Municipality is 60% composed of nature, making this one of our most attractive assets. Plan your green trip to Águeda, discover our river parks and visit the biggest natural lagoon of the Iberian Peninsula – Pateira de Fermentelos.
The AgitÁgueda – Art Festival is a free festival with lots of live music, various street performances, new art installations and different activities every year. This festival takes place in july for 23 consecutive days.
Águeda: a place of multiple landscapes, the city of colourful umbrellas, a green city full of life and amazing places to discover. Rivers and river parks, nature and sports, art and culture, and a gastronomy to die for.
Culture & Local Life
Águeda is part of the “Bairrada” region, a region full of flavours. Starting with the most reagional dish “Leitão à Bairrada”, that should always be sided with a drink of our wine “Espumante Casta Baga” and ending on desert with “Pastéis de Águeda”, you’ll never go away without a full stomach.
Here, you can enjoy multiple landscapes of water and nature, typical builds and modern buildings, ancient art and culture as well as an entire route of Urban Street Art.
Photo © Filipe da Silva
Getting there
Lisbon – Águeda: Take the metro from the airport to “Oriente” train station, catch the train to Aveiro and once there, switch trains and take the Regional one to get to Águeda.
Porto – Águeda: Take the metro from the airport to “Campanhã” train station, catch the train to Aveiro and once there, switch trains and take the Regional one to get to Águeda.
“Rede de Expressos”: catch the bus and travel to various locations in the country, from and to Águeda.
Getting around
In Águeda, you can move around by car, by foot, by train (limited locations within the Municipality) and using our rental e-bike service “beÁgueda”. Make your own path or enjoy one of our various trails and bike trails during your green trip to Águeda!
Nature & Wildlife
Águeda takes pride on having the biggest natural lagoon in the entire Iberian Peninsula – Pateira de Fermentelos. This magic place can be visited and enjoyed in 3 different margins: come to watch the amazing sunset, to practice sports or just to enjoy a picnic with your family and friends!
There are 5 rivers running through our Municipality, you can make the most of them by visiting our river parks and avoiding the very busy Portuguese beaches. If you are a bird lover, know that the practice of birdwatching is very appreciated in Pateira de Fermentelos and the Cértima river margin.
Photo © Armindo Ferreira
Sustainability
Being 60% green space, Águeda worries about the greener way of living and is betting on green alternatives to everyday activities. The reduction of waste and pollution, the energy saving and the adoption of e-alternatives has been an important issue for many years.
Some of the actions taken for the municipality have been the valorisation of waste, through education and availability of different waste deposits (oil, batteries, old electronic devices, etc). The city is now illuminated by LED-lamps, an eco-friendly alternative. Besides all these, the adoption of e-bikes and cars is growing, counting with various charging parks for these alternatives.
Health and Safety
The national entity for tourism in Portugal – “Turismo de Portugal” – allowed every tourism facility to take their complementary training specific for COVID-19 in which they specify the measures that should be guaranteed in every different type of tourism facility. This training gives the institution a “quality stamp”.
In Águeda, our Tourism office, as well as various tourism businesses took the training and guarantee they are taking every measure possible to fight the virus. Every surface is disinfected, there’s always alcohol for the customers to sanitize their hands coming in and out, everyone has to wear a mask and a lot of other specific measures to insure the maximum care. All this so you will feel safer and more comfortable during your green trip to Águeda.
Good Practice Story
The new project “Valuable Waste!”, developed on the scope of the “Águeda SM@RT City Lab” is an innovative solution for managing solid urban waste. Its goal is that the community separates different packages, significantly increasing the levels of recycling. People can take their packages and dispose of them in this innovative machine that works with plastic PET bottles, cans and glass bottles.
After disposing of the bottles, the machine gives back a ticket with the quantity of disposed packages. This ticket gives you points (5 points for each PET plastic bottle, 3 for cans and 2 points for glass bottles that you can, then, use to trade for reusable bags, domestic recycling kits, discount vouchers for the local commerce and many other opportunities!
Travel tips from our editors
Walking Routes
In Águeda, you find walk and bike routes: since 2,5kms long, to +20km long, of easy and hard difficulty levels, that will allow you to be one with the surrounding nature and further discover our parishes. There’s something for every taste, since more rural ways, to forest routes and even our urban art walking route, that leads you to get to know our city centre and down town area. You can download the information for every route here.
Macieira de Alcôba and Lourizela
In Águeda, you have a lot of different landscapes to discover. Although the city centre and downtown areas are full of new and exciting colours with our urban art paintings and installations, we invite everyone to discover our blues and greens, our houses made of stone and people made from the life lived where there are no supermarkets, but only local stores and “central” coffee houses: get to know Macieira de Alcôba and Lourizela, two very typical villages that remain true to their ancient roots.
Food & Drinks
If you visit Portugal, you can’t skip our rich gastronomy: everywhere you go, you find new and exciting dishes, deserts and drinks. Águeda is no exception! You want to try a local meal, top to bottom? Try our “Leitão à Bairrada” (roasted pork), that is sided with fried or baked potatoes, orange slices and salad. To wash it down, no better than our wine of the “Baga” caste (a sparkling wine, like champaign, locally made from our vineyards). As always… we save the best for last: our most typical sweet: “Pastéis de Águeda”… we won’t spoil the experience, it’ll remain a surprise!
Sustainability Recognition
Águeda is in the Sustainable Top 100 since 2018 until now.
In 2019 Portugal received the “Best of Europe” Award at ITB Berlin for the efforts of its nine Green Destinations (including Águeda) for sustainable and responsible tourism.
Águeda was also considered “One of the best municipalities to live in”, with the recognition from The International Awards For Liveable Communities in 2019 – 1st place in the category of municipalities with 20k to 75k inhabitants.
EN
PT
NL
DE
ES
ZH