ALGARVE: The Garden of Portugal

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLII, Issue 20587, 28 November 1936, Page 9 (Supplement)

ALGARVE: The Garden of Portugal

By

C. D. Palmer

Blue Peter”

ALONG the southern seaboarc of Portugal lies Algarve, a province which, both in its people nd in its general characteristics, is a

complete contrast to the rest of the country. In the days of the Moorish domination of the Peninsula, nearly seven hundred years ago, this district was called “Al Garbh,” meaning “The Western Province,” and the name has remained to the present day. The influence of the bygone Moorish conquerors can be seen in the flat-roofed houses with their strange cylindrical chimneys, quite different from those in other parts of Portugal, and in the clothing and swarthy appearance of the inhabitants.

To-day Algarve is the fruit garden of Portugal, where figs and almonds are grown intensively, and where, in early spring, the almond blossom covering the countryside in a veil of white is one of the sights of Europe. It is said that one of the old Moorish Emirs married a princess from the Atlas Mountains of North Africa and. fearing lest she should pine for the snows of her native land, caused his province to be thickly planted with almond trees, so that in spring the masses of their blossom should remind her of the snow-clad country of the Atlas. Elsewhere the almond trees are

mingled with olives and carobs, whose dark foliage blends with the silver-grey branches of innumerable fig trees to make a picture of fertility enhanced yet further by the fresh green of the young wheat growing beneath them. The almond blossom ranges through a variety of tints from pure white to a pink which sometimes deepens into mauve, and in the brilliant sunshine the air is so laden with its scent that one seems to be breathing the essence of pure honey. But the whole province is not a fruit garden, and does, in tact, provide as many contrasts as can be found in

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all the rest of Portugal. Entering Algrave by road or rail from Lisbon and the North one passes out of the rolling wheat plains of Alemtejo and crosses a low range of rounded, dimpling hills. Wheat is grown up the steep, unterraced slopes almost to their summits, the highest of which are covered with cork and pine trees, and from them one drops down through the foot-hills to the sea-board, where, under the fruit trees, beans and peas grow in profusion.

To the east lie the flats at the mouth of the River Guadiana, the frontier between Portugal and Spain, where the white town of Villa Real de Santo Antonio looks across the river to Ayamonte, its Spanish counterpart. Villa Real is a singularly dull little town, which for Portugal looks very new, and so it is, for the old town was destroyed by the great earthquake of 1755 and its successor was built by the great Marques de Pombal in the short space of five months. All its streets run at right angles to one another on what used to be called in Europe the American plan. It is therefore a very early example of rea-

soned town planning as distinct from the average European town, which just grew up anyhow. Three miles behind Villa Real, on some rising fround, stands Casto Marim, a mighty fortress of the 13th century Here the successors to the Knights Templar, the famous Order of Christ, had their first headquarters before, in the early 14th century, they were transferred to Tomar. The old .castle looks out over the salt flats to the sea, and across the Guadiana into Spain, a coast defence and frontier fortress combined. Within the castle walls are the rott-

ing ruins of the old town and its churches. The inner keep is 'he original 13th century fort, a great square block with circular towers at the corners Yet for all its strength it seems to have had no well to provide water in case of siege. Instead there is a large underground reservoir fed by a most elaborate system of gutters bringing water from the battlements and courtyard. One wonders whether in the heyday of the castle the climate

of Southern Portugal was not wetter than at present that the water supply of such a key fortress should be dependent on the elements. For prisoners it must have been grim, since the dungeon, still well preserved, had five successive doors, no windows, and only a narrow slit in the roof for ventilation.

To-day the ground within the fort is cultivated by the custodian, a dear old gentleman in caped coat who like farmers the world over, complains that the weather is either too dry or too wet for his beans, and takes particular pride in his goat which gives two litres of milk a day and regularly presents him with twin kids.

Lying along the coast, westward of the Guadiana mud flats, is a succession of little white towns, and gradually the country becomes more garden-like and the fruit trees more thickly planted. Tavira, about sixteen miles from Villa Real, is a sleepy old city of Moorish origin, whose church contains the tomb of the “Sete Cacadores,” or “Seven Hunters,” famous in Portuguese story. Tavira was taken from the Moors in 1242 after a prolonged siege.

During one of the periodic truces, which seem to have been part of the etiquette of sieges in those far-off days, seven of the Christian knights went hunting together and were treacherously attacked and killed by the Moors. Although the city was considered impregnable to direct assault, such was the spirit of revenge inspired in the Christians by this breach of the conventions that they immediately attacked and carried the city. Olhao, about ten miles farther on, saw the start of one of the great adventures of Portuguese sailors. During the French occupation of Portugal in

the Peninsula War it was the first town to rise and expel them. King John VI had taken refuge in Brazil, and eight fishermen of Olhao set sail in their caique to bring the news to their exiled king that part at least of his country was free of the enemy. And so, without charts or any equipment for an ocean voyage, and with only their own estimation of the winds and tides, they set forth for Rio de Janeiro, and eventually, after many adventures and great hardship, were the first to bring the glad news to the king.

Faro, the capital of Algarve, is only eight miles farther West. It is a city which has seen life. Near by the Romans had a city called Ossonoba. and thereafter Faro itself was a Moorish Principality, won for Christendom by Dom Afonso 111 in 1249. Then in 1596 disaster came at the hands of the English, for the Earl of Essex swooped down with the English fleet, burned and pillaged the town an;’ robbed it for the famous library of Bishop Osorio. Fortunately the books were carried safely to England, and now form part of the Bodleian Library at Oxford. The city was rebuilt afteh the Essex raid, but it was again damaged in 1722 by earthquake, and it had barely recovered when it was shattered by the greater earthquake of 1755.

Behind the town, on some rising ground, stands the little white church of Santo Antonio do Alto. It would not call for comment but for the wonderful view from its tower, whence can be seen the whole of Faro, the wide expanse of saltings between the town and the sea, the coastal plain stretching eastwards to Villa Real, the fertile land to the west full of figs and almonds, and behind to the north the range of hills running east and west, with the Serra de Monchique, a big blue mass, at the western end. In a room off the tiny courtyard of the brilliantly white-washed church is a naif little museum devoted to objects in association with S. Antonio, who, though a native of Lisbon, is better known as St. Antony of Padua. The exhibits range from a really old picture of S. Antonio on wood to the music, “Aria de Santo Antonio,” used in a recent film, and even to a box of toothpicks adorned with a picture of the saint.

Faro is to-day some distance from the sea, from which it is reached by a long winding channel through the salt marshes. It is believed that in Roman times the sea came right up to the present site of the city and that the various earthquakes have been responsible far its retreat.

A few miles north of Faro, just where the ground begins to rise towards the hills, lie the ruins of the Roman city of Ossonoba, now called Milreu. To judge by the few uncovered ruins, this must have been a city of some importance. The foundations of elaborate baths have been laid bare, showing the heating system and decorative mosaics. The basilica is the chief building above ground, of which the apse and part of the vaulting remain, having survived the earthquakes of antiquity and the 18th century—a tribute to Roman masonry. Algarve is very thickly populated, The people are dark, and as a rule of poor physique; their standard of living is low, and one gains an impression of great poverty. Black is the almost universal colour of the clothing both of men and women. The headgear of the women is peculiar, for they all wear handkerchiefs over the tops of their heads and tied under their chins, as though they dreaded lest any air should reach their ears. On top of the handkerchief they wear a black felt hat, usually an ordinary man’s Homburg, though the more particular wear a flat black hat exactly like a “gent’s boater” in felt. Perhaps the handkerchief round the head and the universal black of feminine fashions are a survival of Moorish times, and it is said that even to-day in some of the remote villages the women still go about veiled in the Moorish manner.

The universal carrier in Algarve is the ass, both the large Spanish breed and the commoner small grey variety. No one—whether man, woman or child —ever seems to walk, but rides a donkey. One is left with an impression of hundreds of black-clothed women riding along the roads atop panniers crammed with market produce or taking their red earthenware waterpots to and from the wells. Horses, asses and mules are used for plough-

ing and draught work, and one sometimes sees a very small ass harnessed with a very tall horse. Algarvian animals are by no means used to motor transport, and most of the animals shy violently at motor-cars, to the consternation of their riders.

There are carts of all sorts. Some have a palisade of bamboo around them and are laden to overflowing with water-bottles and other domestic utensils in the red unglazed ware of the country. Then there are cork carts, which come down from the hills with an unbelievable quantity of bark roped in neat cylindrical bundles, the two mules drawing them leaning together drunkenly for braking effect, and there are the wine carts carrying huge barrels, with gaily painted awnings like gigantic sun bonnets.

From Faro the road runs westward through a profusion of almond and fig orchards and olive groves, with here and there, beside the villages, an orchard of oranges. Finally it crosses a long bridge over the estuary of the Rio de Portimao into Portimao. Praia da Rocha, the seaside resort of Algrave, is only a mile and a half away, at the mouth of the estaury.

The Grand Hotel at Praia da Rocha is the best in Algarve; moreover, it is cheap. It stands on the top of the cliffs overlooking the sandy bay, which in summer, the time of Praia da Rocha’s season, provides ideal sea and sun-bathing. Even at Christmas one can sun-bathe, and it is then that the foreign visitors, though as yet they are few, begin to come to Algarve, but only the hardiest of them venture into the sea.

To-day Praira da Rocha is small, secluded and unspoilt, but, alas, plans are afoot for its development as a tourist resort, and in a few years its charm will have begun to fade in proportion to the success of its popularization. However, it will always remain the most convenient centre from which to explore the province. Half-way between Praia da Rocha and . Cape St. Vincent, on an uninspiring estuary stands Lagos, whose bay is one of the finest anchorages on the coast of the Peninsula, and throughout history has been the assembly point of fleets. It is said to be able to accommodate a hundred and fifty modern war vessels. Lagos became a favourite residence of Prince Henry the Navigator, and it was here that he founded his company for navigation and trade with Africa. At the time of its destruction by the great earthquake of 1755 it was the capital of Algarve, but with this disaster it lost its status. To-day it is a typical Algarvio town, with narrow, twistingstreets looking out across the estuary to the wide, sheltered bay. As one travels westward from Lagos

the rich fruit farms die away and the country rapidly gets barer and barer. Finally it changes into a windswept, undulating moorland, where even the sparse fig trees are dwarfed and crouch close to the earth as though trying to escape the wind. The ground is covered with scrub and heath, and the cows and even the goats wear rope muzzles to prevent them eating the indigestible vegetation.

At last one reaches Sagres, little more than a hamlet, standing on a bare headland, with the huge, disused fort of Ponta de Sagres covering the little bay below the village. Two and a half miles further west stretches Cape St. Vincent, the south-western extremity of Europe, and on the cliff, a sheer two hundred feet above the Atlantic, stands the lighthouse beside the few remaining ruins of the college of navigation which Prince Henry the Navigator established in the early part of the 15th century. Standing beside the lighthouse, with its candlepower running into almost astronomical figures, one can look down on the great ocean liners ploughing their way home from the East as they pass close under the cliff to turn the cape for

their run northward. And one cannot forget the great man who on this bare headland gathered together the foremost navigational scientists of the world, and by his energies and researches inspired the Portuguese pioneers and paved the way for the discovery of Brazil and the sea route to India.

Algarve, the province of contrasts, has yet another to show in the hills of Monchique, which lie a few miles inland, north of Portimao. Nestling amongst them is the little village of Caldas de Monchique, famous for its warm springs, which contain sulphur, bicarbonate and manganese, and are remarkably efficacious for the treatment of skin disease. A road runs up into the hills, following a valley with a rushing stream, the favourite washing place of the local housewives. Quantities of washing are spread out on the ground to dry, and groups of women are busily washing and gossiping. As the road rises petticoathooped daffodils grow beside the road and the course of the stream is marked by alders.

Suddenly, on turning a corner, one is confronted by a splash of gold, the gold of a mimosa tree in full bloom. From here upward the thickening green of pine and cqjk trees is splashed with the golden blossom of mimosas and the air is almost overloaded with their scent.

Caldab de Monchique lies at a bend of the road in a little pocket of the hills, a few yards off the main road.

Caldas is a spa, and many people go there to bathe and take the waters of the warm spring. There is an up-to-date bathing establishment with various kinds of baths, below which is a small orchard where, sheltered by high bamboos, oranges and lemons and even a number of banana palms bearing fruit are growing. Thence, through what is called “The Paradise,” the stream runs between rocky banks and over occasional cascades, overhung with alders, its course crossed and recrossed by rustic bridges. Past Caldas the road runs up over hills covered with cork, pine, eucalyptus and chestnut to Monchique, and thence winds down the north slope of the hills to Saboia, giving fine views northward over the rounded hills towards the plain of Alemtejo. One more place of interest in Algarve remains to be mentioned, the

old city of Silves, which lies on a hill which rises in the middle of the valley of the Rio Arade. One’s first impression of it is that it has swelled up and burst. The old walls are there, with their Moorish castellated battlements and towers, but the town has long ago overflowed its walls and poured down the hill to the valley below. Driving through the outer town one reaches a little square outside the old town gate whose arches zig-zag through the immensely thick wall and. though they have been hacked about to allow the passage of modem traffic, still show traces of the Moorish horseshoe.

Through the gate a steep cobbled street leads up to the Gothic cathedral and the keep, the former being one of the few remaining buildings which survived the earthquake of 1755. Just above the cathedral is the gate into the keep which encloses a large area of ground now devoted to an almond orchard, and from it there is a magnificent view over the valley of the Arcade, with its eucalyptus trees and white masses of almond blossom and the pale grey stems of the lines of fig trees.

Five towers, used to this day as the town gaol, are arranged round the circumference of the keep. They are still as primitive as any mediaeval dungeon, lacking light, heating and modem ventilation, and having only the most primitive and simple sanitary arrangements. Through small slats in the steel doors of these cells the yellow faces of prisoners peer out at visitors. In the heat of summer these prison towers must be an inferno, and the old Moorish reservoir, which is still the only source of W’ater supply for the keep, does not suggest either adequate or palatable drinking water.

So far Algarve has been undeveloped; motor-cars are comparatively few, as indeed they are all over PortugaL but the roads are good and are being improved daily. Perhaps the greatest discomfort is the dust, for only a small mileage of road is tarred. But. accessible as it is by a good service of trains and motor coaches from Lisbon, Algarve’s chief charm lies in the fact that the province is as yet unexplored by and unexploited for the European tourist whose advent in numbers has made so many beauty spots a nightmare.