The Algarve
With potential to host either an ambiguous beach holiday or an experience of genuine hospitality, visitors to the Algarve are presented with a choice.
Photo by Bruno Martins, via Unsplash.
As one of Europe’s most popular holiday destinations, the Portuguese Algarve is well known as a stretch of tourist-oriented beach towns where vacationers flock each summer by the millions. In any vacation hotspot like this, there is always the risk of what I’ll call holiday ambiguity: a beach destination that is vaguely familiar from memories of family holidays and the backdrop of summer vacation photos, yet scarcely known in its own right as a place with idiosyncrasies, local culture, and people who remain there long after the last weekend of summer.
Vacationers to towns like Vilamoura along the south coast of Portugal, or to destinations of this sort, are all presented with a choice: to take the culturally ambiguous holiday they are offered for face value, buying into comfortable tourist-oriented experiences and returning home with a suntan but fundamentally the same; or taking the time to look for the more genuine faces and corners of the places they’ve gone out of their way to encounter. Likewise, to those who are seeking out cultural experiences from the get-go, popular holiday destination are easily discounted as cheesy and inauthentic. Traveller types might worry that visiting a place like the Algarve would mean missing out on ‘the real Portugal’. But they too can embrace the same challenge to get behind a cheerful vacation-friendly façade. As I found, it’s almost always possible to cultivate an authentic experience if you make the effort to seek it out.
In this particular case, we got the truest taste of Portuguese way by making friends with a local named Paolo who had lived in the neighbouring town of Quarteira all his life, a fact proven by his habit of greeting nearly everyone we passed on the street by name. Paolo not only arranged the best meal of our trip, leading us to a family-owned restaurant in his town that had been in operation for decades, but showed us first hand the kind of hospitality that makes you feel like family yourself. Laughing over an incredible fish dinner and sharing local ‘green’ wine, I was instantly reminded of the reason we travel in the first place — to allow the places we go to momentarily consume us, to offer us a glimpse inside, even if only for a little while. It is because of people like him, and experiences like that, that I will always urge anyone venturing someplace new to reach out to the locals and allow them to see your desire to be amongst them. In every experience of mine, they will welcome you with open arms.
Apart from a stroll through old Quarteira, days can be easily spent in Vilamoura enjoying the beach, the incredible seafood, the gorgeous marina, and the open sea by boat. Without a cloud in the sky and or a worry in the world, I can see why the Algarve is coined the perfect place to relax on holiday. Fresh seafood piled high, brightly coloured flowers practically spilling from the trees in clusters of pink and orange, a freezing ocean to oppose the scorching summer sun; it’s a postcard just waiting to be printed. But local culture, although somewhat eclipsed by the foreign chatter echoing on beaches packed with tourists, is there beneath it all, under the beach bar tablecloths and sandcastle-shaped plastic buckets. In fact, it reminded me of the Italian one I know so well, only slightly different.
At their core, the Portuguese way and the Italian are fundamentally very much congruent, although many are reluctant to admit it. Both value the connections made when sitting together at a table where food, drink, conversations and laughter are shared without hesitation. Both are warmly expressive, only in different tongues; but it doesn’t matter because Portugal is a place with heart, and when it comes to the heart, we all speak the same language.
Less Crowded Corners
A few pointers to get you off the beaten path in Vilamoura…
Take a stroll to the town of Quarteira and visit the food market to pick up a midday snack; prioritise this during fig season!
Eat at Dallas in Quarteira. Don’t be fooled by its cringe-worthy American name – this was the spot our friend Paolo brought us to for an authentic meal of dishes local to the Algarve, prepared by the same family that had been running the restaurant for forty years. Eat your way through plates of clams, prawns, sea bass, coriander rice, and local cakes, sip local ‘green’ (sparkling) white wine, and if you’re feeling brave, taste the local liqueur known as firewater.
Pastéis de nata is a famed national favourite for good reason. Try to locate a small, local bakery like Petunia to fuel the forthcoming addiction.
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