ALBUFEIRA
1__ Al-Buhera Sea Fort The Saracens’ last barricade
You can reach the beach in Albufeira by taking the lift, stairs or escalator, or by walking right through the cliffs via a tunnel. The modern city, which boasts a starfish as its symbol, stands on a group of hills, and the old town is built right up to the edge of the sandstone cliffs of the coast. The fishermen’s quarter nestles up to the Praia dos Pescadores beach, and an area peppered with nightclubs and restaurants spreads out all the way to Avenida da Liberdade. The ‘unassailable’ Moorish sea fort of Al-Buhera once sat atop the cliffs over the Praia do Peneco beach. Steps next to the beach tunnel lead to the cliff top. From there you walk left, past the clock tower, to the old market place at the main gate of the former fortress. The oval whitewashed concrete rampart in the centre of the square is a miniature, stylised imitation of the battlements of the inner wall of the double-fortified sea fort. This is where the remaining soldiers of the last emirs of Al-Gharb held out, barricaded in behind high walls, defending the fortress to the last man against the advancing Crusaders of the conquistador king Dom Afonso III. The exposed wall foundations and two cisterns visible in the archaeological excavation site are about 1,000 years old; these are the only traces left on the cliffs of the legendary Al-Buhera fortress. The inner ramparts of the frequently contested fort were completely destroyed. There are still some fragments of the outer fortifications that once encompassed the entire hill, visible on street corners at the end of narrow, shaded passageways in the former castle district. The houses here are so close together that you can only get around on foot. Arcade arches mark the sites of ancient city gates. All is calm here in the alleyways of the former sea fort, just a few steps away from the beating heart of the biggest tourist metropolis on the Algarve. 10
Address Museu de Arqueológia de Albufeira, Praça da República 1, 8200 Albufeira | Getting there A 22, exit 9, IC 1/N 395 Albufeira, left at the Explorers Roundabout, right at the lights, park on the way to the city centre, walk towards the tunnel to the beach, go up the stairs at the tourist office, then left past the clock tower to the museum | Hours Tue – Sun 9.30am – 5.30pm, with a midday break | Tip If you turn right at the top of the stairs you will find Albufeira’s three main churches as well as the Museum of Sacred Art.
ALBUFEIRA
2__ Capela da Misericórdia The lottery for beatitude
On a side street only a few metres away from the cliffs, a wooden door in a plain portal with a pointed arch closes this chapel off from the world. The house of god has been abandoned, and currently serves the local parish as a store for religious props. It is rarely open, which is a great shame, as the chapel has many stories to tell. After the Christian reconquest, the former Muslim mihrab was turned over to a new purpose, as a private chapel for the future castellans of Albufeira. The Islamic prayer niche was replaced by a Catholic altar, and the church was reconsecrated. Three centuries later, Eleanor of Lancaster created the charitable ecclesiastical order of Santa Casa de Misericórdia.The castellan of Albufeira of the time supported the queen and her newly founded charity for the needy by gifting her the chapel and all its outbuildings. It has survived to this day as the very first such charity on the Algarve. As an expression of her gratitude for the generous donation, Eleanor granted the castellan and his wife a final resting place in a crypt under the altar. The Santa Casa charity grew rapidly, and branches cropped up all over the country. But the number of people in need grew as well, and soon collections alone weren’t sufficient to finance the royal charity. In search of additional sources of income for the offertory box, the charity devised the idea of a game of chance, the holy Santa Casa lottery. Since then the coffers have always been full. Tickets can be bought on the street from news kiosks, or from members of staff of the Santa Casa organisation. The lottery for beatitude has continued to grow, and today the holy Santa Casa lottery system includes the EuroMillions draw and the Totoloto lottery. The draws take place weekly, and the charity uses the profit to maintain its churches, nursing homes and kindergartens. 12
Address Capelinha da Misericórdia, Rua Henrique Calado 5 – 9, 8200 Albufeira | Getting there A 22, exit 9, IC 1/ N 395 Albufeira, left at the Explorers Roundabout, right at the traffic lights, park on Avenida da Liberdade, go up the stairs at the tourist office, then left and left again at the Archaeological Museum | Tip Tapete Mágico, a 10-minute walk away on Rua Oceano, is the in-house shop at Santa Casa da Misericórdia’s main building. It sells hand-woven wool carpets with traditional Algarve patterns, the like of which you’re unlikely to find elsewhere (Mon – Fri, mornings).
ALBUFEIRA
3__ The City Library Lídia Jorge and her message
The city library of Albufeira is called Biblioteca Municipal Lídia Jorge – a choice of name that is a homage to the world-renowned author from the Algarve. The Portuguese writer of novels, which have been translated into over 30 languages around the world, was born in 1946, and studied Romance philology at the University of Lisbon. In 1970 she accompanied her then husband, who served as a soldier in the colonial wars, to Africa, and lived with him for many years in Angola and Mozambique, where she worked as a teacher. Her profound encounters with African culture, steeped in the climate of war, inspired Lídia Jorge to work through her observations in written form after returning to Portugal. Her debut The Day of the Prodigies was published a few years after the 1974 Carnation Revolution, and was one of the first books in Portugal to deal with the Portuguese colonial wars in Africa in novel form. One of her later novels, The Murmuring Coast, was made into a film in 2004. It tells the story, in the guise of a flashback, of a young woman who arrives in Mozambique as the wife of a soldier and becomes entangled in the chaos of war. The impact of war on people and their relationships was the predominant theme in many of the author’s stories, before she discovered the Algarve as a new backdrop for her novels. Having received several international prizes for literature, and been appointed Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in France, Lídia Jorge now writes novels about her Portuguese homeland. Her characters are notable for their insubordinate nature and other clearly defined traits of genuine Algarvians. She is a role model for other female authors. Her courage in writing experimentally has encouraged women in particular to take a career as an author seriously. In Albufeira, Lídia Jorge is seen as an ambassador for local culture, traditions and language. 14
MALHÃO
64__ The Buddhist Stupa A sacred place on the Serra do Mú
The winding country road from Benafim to Malhão twists and turns up the Pé de Coelho mountain. The name means ‘rabbit’s foot’ – the peak of the mountain has a bulge on it like a paw, on which the stump of a former windmill still stands. The vegetation on the mountainside is sparse. Puny strawberry trees and crooked cork oaks cling defiantly to the precipitous terrain. On the pass, the Mira Mar café invites you in to take a rest. From here you can walk straight on to Malhão, the only slate village in the Algarve. Squat houses made of slate flank the narrow village streets. Most of them have no windows and only open on to the world through colourful wooden doors with large keyholes. The one-way street leads through Malhão and back on to the main road towards Almodôvar. On the other side of the street, opposite the café, a track forks off and ends up at the rabbit’s paw. A circular herb garden marks the highest point on the mountain. Where once a second windmill stood, there is now a four-metre-high granite monument, surrounded by clumps of rosemary and lavender. This curiously shaped pillar is a stupa shrine in honour of the Buddha. The first stupa to be built in Portugal, it has been here since 2012. ‘Those in search of meaning will find enlightenment here,’ is the motto of the Tibetan religious community who live on the estate near the stupa. The community runs a retreat centre for meditation, yoga and esoteric workshops here. From the stupa shrine, your gaze may wander over the Serra do Mú mountain range, far into the interior of the country and Alentejo, and to the east all the way to the wind turbines along the Spanish-Portuguese border. It is a sublimely beautiful place to meditate. The inhabitants of Malhão have got used to the community and their customs, including the chanting of mantras, and they now live in peaceful harmony. 136
Address Stupa-Associação para a Paz no Mundo, Moinho do Malhão, 8100 Salir, stupapaznomundo.org | Getting there A 2 towards Lisbon, exit S. B. de Messines, N 124 to Benafim, left to Sobradinho, right to Malhão | Tip The tranquil small town of Almodôvar in Alentejo, with all its attractions, is a 20-minute drive away. Almodôvar gives you a taste of Alentejo’s everyday culture, which provides a noticeable contrast to life on the Algarve.
MARMELETE
65__ The Santinha A village learns to learn
The ‘road to beautiful views’ leads all the way to Marmelete from the granite quarry in Nave near Monchique. As it snakes along the Fóia mountain, eucalyptuses line the edge of the road like a guard of honour. Fern and bracken shine bright green under the canopy of silvery-grey leaves. Lagos, Portimão and Ferragudo, the Arade river and the Alvor lagoon lie spread out along the coast. The mammoth Algarve Motorsports Park comes into view in the midst of the seclusion of the Serra. Half a kilometre from the mountain village of Marmelete you reach a picnic area, next to which the Madonna of Safe Journeys greets those driving past. She stands in a niche painted light blue and white, and is better known as the Santinha. The niche, built in the form of a star beam, was created according to a design by a teacher called Maria Guilhermina from Marmelete. This teacher was a real local heroine, who felt that her job was a calling. Driven by her passion, she campaigned for the universal right to education in the remote rural area. This was before education was compulsory in Portugal, when the law stipulated only four years of schooling in the village. For over 40 years, Maria Guilhermina taught the children of the village in the morning, officially and paid; then in the afternoon, unofficially and unpaid, she taught adults reading and writing. Her pupils liked to learn. Through her commitment, the ambitious teacher lowered the rate of illiteracy in the district of Monchique, imparting to parents the principle that education is a human right, and thus creating a positive attitude towards compulsory schooling. The Ministry of Culture praised the teacher posthumously as a leading figure in the fight against educational poverty. Marmelete immortalised the resolute teacher by naming a square after her. And Maria Guilhermina left her home village the Santinha. 138
Address N 267, 8550 Marmelete | Getting there A 22, exit 5, towards Monchique, in Nave turn left at the quarry towards Aljezur; Santinha is right at the entrance to the village | Tip The circular hiking trail PR 6 MCQ begins at the parish church, leads through the village and continues out through the surrounding country to the Miradouro dos Picos viewpoint. In the Casa de Medronho museum in Marmelete you can find out how the legendary strawberry-tree fruit brandy Medronho is made.
MEXILHOEIRA DE CARREGAÇÃO
66__ The Tollhouse-Madhouse The king’s extra-extra fig tax
The extraordinary feat of 18th-century engineering that is the Águas Livres aqueduct in Lisbon was a very costly project, funded by the introduction of a special sales tax, especially on the trade and export of olive oil and wine. However, even these new tax revenues were not sufficient to rebuild the country’s ruined infrastructure after the earthquake of 1755. So the king, Dom José I, increased the rate of tax and decreed a new, additional charge – the fig tax. The fraternity of fig farmers groaned heavily, as figs were particularly popular as a dried fruit for export. The fig business was at least as lucrative as olive oil production, and it had previously been tax-free, but on the other hand, it was extremely labour intensive. Before the sensitive fruits could be properly dried and traded, they first had to be carefully picked by hand, one by one. Around a third of the crop was immediately discarded because it was either too small or overripe. After the introduction of the new tax, it was the fig producers of the Algarve in particular who had to cough up, and they were forced to pay an especially high levy for their fruit. Rumours of nepotism and the personal enrichment of the tax collectors began to circle. From then on any dubious business in the Algarve has been jokingly named after the place in which the tollhouse for the ‘extra-extra tax’ on figs stood – an inconspicuous little village with the unpronounceable name of Mexilhoeira de Carregação. It’s a real tongue twister. Colloquially, the tollhouse was known as the madhouse, where the tax pirates stuffed their purses full, ‘Mexilhoeira-style’. The customs office for the extra-extra fig tax of Mexilhoeira de Carregação was right next to the jetty for the ferry to Portimão. The building is still standing, and currently awaiting a new function – or the wrecking ball. 140
Address Rua Patrício Júdice 49, 8400 Mexilhoeira de Carregação | Getting there A 22, exit 6, N 125 towards Lagoa south, then Portimão, take the next exit, Parchal, turn right at the first roundabout to Mexilhoeira de Carregação and park at the harbour; the former tollhouse is on the river bank | Tip A short walk upstream are the saltworks and the tidal mill, under the steel-cable bridge. A little further on is the Ibn’Ammar grotto (see ch. 37).
MEXILHOEIRA GRANDE
67__ Algarve Motorsports Park Motorsport fun to watch and join in with
After a record-breaking seven-month construction period, the Algarve’s international motorsports park opened in November 2008. Since then, the four-and-a-half-kilometre-long race track in the middle of nowhere, north of Mexilhoeira Grande at the foot of the Serra de Monchique mountain range, has been a fixture in the international motorsport scene. For its opening ceremony it staged the final round of the World Superbike Championship. This baptism of fire ran smoothly and attracted tens of thousands of spectators to the circuit’s very first race day. The futuristic-looking stands in racing red seat a total of 80,000 spectators, and offer excellent views of the demanding circuit, with its treacherous chicanes. The project was seen as forward looking for the region, and was a real coup for the mayor of the district in office at the time. On the other hand, the noise pollution created by the park has caused great resentment among locals, and the destruction of habitat for wild animals in this otherwise uninhabited area has led to noisy protests among environmentalists. Despite all the resistance, the race track at the south-western end of Europe has now established itself on the international motorsport calendar and attracts a completely new set of visitors to the Algarve, with motorsport activities such as test drives, Superbike championships, motor races and classic car festivals. The two-lane feeder road from the A 22 motorway leads directly to the park, and it’s tempting to really put your foot down. But you’d be much better keeping to the speed limit, and then getting your kicks speeding around an actual racetrack in a racing car like a real pro. In the Kartódromo next door, everything is slightly smaller is scale, with one and a half kilometres and 17 turns waiting to be torn up in high-speed go-karts. Great fun for anyone with a need for speed. 142
Acknowledgements First and foremost I would like to thank the staff at the Biblioteca Municipal Manuel Teixeira Gomes in Portimão, who were always there with helpful advice and a real feel for the right literature to help me in my work on this book. I thank my husband Arménio for having the patience of a saint when I was in the final stages of writing this book, during which I was maniacally attached to my desk. I would like to thank my colleague Kerstin Lange for bringing Emons’ 111 Places series to my attention. Thank you very much to Berenike Jacob for everything that she didn’t say. Nuno Campos Inácio from Arandis-Editora, a cultural publishing imprint in the Algarve, was a great help to me on several tricky sources. Muito Obrigada, Nuno! I would like to give special thanks to Katharina Theml for her valuable and constructive collaboration in the editing phase. Thank you also to Sonja Erdmann for the second runthrough and the whole of the Emons team for their support from A to Z in the realisation of this wonderful project as well as Laura Olk, Gillian Tait and Tom Ashforth for their work on the translation of the english edition. The final thank you goes to my readers who accompany me through this book and to 111 places along the Algarve.
The author Catrin George Ponciano, born in Bielefeld in 1967, has lived since 1999 in the Algarve in her adoptive home of Portugal, where she works as an author and tour guide. She regularly publishes photo reportages about Portugal, writes travel books and accompanies tour groups through Portugal from North to South and vice versa. www.catringeorge.com