See it for yourself…
A hip little village called Comporta, on Portugal’s Troia peninsula, reminds our writer of the White Isle, but with low prices and no crowds.
An hour south of Lisbon, Comporta is a village on the Tróia peninsula, a long sandy spit in the north of Portugal’s Alentejo region. It sits at the heel of the peninsula, at the southern end of the wide Sado estuary, sandwiched between dense forest and the Atlantic.
I stroll along the wooden boardwalk and before me is a sizzling hot beach resplendent with palm umbrellas, sun loungers and two beach cafes, where people lie on hot-pink bean bags, nodding to chilled-out tunes. The Atlantic sparkles and foamy waves break hard on the shore.
At Ilha do Arroz (restauranteilhadoarroz.com), a beach lounge and restaurant, where specialities include pastéis de bacalhau (salt-cod fishcakes) and amêijoas abulhão pato(clams in a garlicky broth), I get into the laid-back groove with that blueberry caipiroska.
Comporta has been found only by a knowing few, but it is about to become less of a secret, sadly. The 12,500-hectare estate is to be developed, with five hotels and two golf courses – though it is claimed all being low-density and architecturally sensitive.
For now, it is quiet. On a Sunday in mid-June the ferry that crosses the Sado estuary from Setubal once an hour is only a third full. The passengers included locals popping to the beach for a picnic, a few Lisbonites and the odd foreign tourist. All was peaceful until the two dozen passengers rushed en masse to the side of the boat to watch two bottlenose dolphins.
Beaches strewed with driftwood and the odd sunseeker greet us at the shore.
The French aristocrat and garden designer Louis Benech supposedly does away with shoes altogether and walks around town barefoot. Comporta is where the fashionable crowd goes off the grid, and they don’t necessarily want to talk about it—particularly after a Portuguese magazine quoted someone as saying, “Comporta is where rich people go to play at being poor.”
It all seems wonderful, don’t you think? Definitely, my weekend getaway, where after only 2 days out it feels I have just come back from holidays.
Found out here where you can stay.
