Frommer's Portugal 18th Edition - Asociación de Amigos de Portugal ...

6
CHAPTER 1 . THE BEST OF PORTUGAL
chain of state-owned and operated
hotels. The rooms might not be as
opulent as you’d hoped, and the
government-appointed staffs will
probably be more bureaucratic than
you’d care to encounter. Nonetheless,
pousada-hopping rewards the
visitor with insights into the Portugal
of long ago.
• Playing Golf by the Sea: British
merchants trading in Portugal’s
excellent wines imported the sport
of golf around 1890. Until the
1960s, it remained a diversion only
for the very wealthy. Then an explosion
of interest from abroad led to
the creation of at least 30 major
courses. Many courses lie near
Estoril and in the southern
Algarve. The combination of great
weather, verdant fairways, and
azure seas and skies is almost addictive
(as if golf fanatics needed additional
motivation).
• Swooning to Fado: After soccer,
fado (which translates as “fate”)
music is the national obsession. A
lyrical homage to the bruised or
broken heart, fado assumes forms
that are as old as the troubadours.
Its four-line stanzas of unrhymed
verse, performed by such legendary
stars as Amália Rodrigues, capture
the nation’s collective unconscious.
Hearing the lament of the fadistas
(fado singers) in clubs is the best
way to appreciate the melancholy
dignity of Iberia’s western edge.
• Finding a Solitary Beach: Portugal
has long been famous for the glamour
and style of the beaches near
Estoril, Cascais, Setúbal, and Sesimbra.
More recently, the Algarve,
with its 200km (124 miles) of
tawny sands, gorgeous blue-green
waters, and rocky coves, has captivated
the imagination of northern
Europeans. While the most famous
beaches are likely to be very
crowded, you can find solitude on
the sands if you stop beside lonely
expanses of any coastal road in
northern Portugal.
• Fishing in Rich Coastal Waters:
Portugal’s position on the Atlantic,
its (largely) unpolluted waters, and
its flowing rivers encourage concentrations
of fish. You won’t be
the first to plumb these waters—
Portugal fed itself for hundreds of
generations using nets and lines,
and its maritime and fishing traditions
are among the most
entrenched in Europe. The mild
weather allows fishing year-round
for more than 200 species, including
varieties not seen anywhere else
(such as the 2m/6-ft.-long). The
country’s rivers and lakes produce
three species of trout, black bass,
and salmon; the cold Atlantic
abounds in sea bass, shark, tope,
grouper, skate, and swordfish.
• Trekking to the End of the
World: For medieval Europeans,
the southwestern tip of Portugal
represented the final frontier of
human security and power. Beyond
that point, the oceans were dark
and fearful, filled with demons
waiting to devour the bodies and
souls of mariners foolhardy enough
to sail upon them. Adding Sagres
and its peninsula to the Portuguese
nation cost thousands of lives in
battle against the Moors, and getting
there required weeks of travel
over rocky deserts. Making a pilgrimage
to this outpost is one of
the loneliest and most majestic
experiences in Portugal. Come
here to pay your respects to the
navigators who embarked from
Sagres on journeys to death or
glory. Half a millennium later, the
excitement of those long-ago voyages
still permeates this lonely
corner. See chapter 8.
• Losing It at a Spa: Compared to
the sybaritic luxury of spas in
Germany and France, Portuguese
spas are underaccessorized, and by