Waves of nostalgia
Victoria Harper and her family revisit happy holiday memories in Portugal — and make some new ones
As we pull into Cascais, I see the ghosts. It’s a blistering hot August afternoon on what is dubbed Lisbon’s Riviera, and the Teenager and Teen-to-be may be heads down on their phones, but out of the car window all I can see are the phantoms of their childish selves.
Our 3-year-old (now 14) brimming with excitement outside Santini’s icecream parlour; the tourist shop where we bought our then-7-yearold his first Ronaldo top. The sign to Praia da Rainha — our favourite beach — conjures up a vision of the boys practising jumping off “their” big rock — venturing higher as they grew braver with every passing year.
My melancholia at pulling into one of our favourite holiday destinations is because our family holidays are on the clock. My wide-eyed children are turning into narrow-eyed grumpy boys. I am not sure how many holidays we have left together as a foursome.
We have been in Portugal for a week before this nostalgic wave hits. The previous seven days have been spent exploring Comporta. At this juncture, I should declare a special interest in Portugal. My husband is Portuguese. We met in Acton (not in the romantic back streets of Alfama). A month later — after a romantic weekend in Lisbon’s art district — Janelas Verdes — it was true love for him and his country.
Comporta came on to my radar a couple of years ago. Variously described as the “Ibiza of Portugal” or the “Hamptons of Europe”, this 60km peninsula of sand and cork trees is somewhere in-between. An easy hour or so drive from
Lisbon’s airport over the incredible Vasco da Gama bridge, it is where many wealthy Lisbonites have their summer homes.
The season starts in May and runs to October. Visit any other time and I am told “the only people who you will see have an average age of 90”. Comporta is a small village, focused around Troia Marina (also known as Troia Peninsula) and the beach points of Comporta, Carvalhal and Pego — white powder sand lapped by Atlantic rollers, peppered by beach shack restaurants and bars as chilled as their vinho verde.
It has escaped the excesses of Algarve tourism, and its few small resorts are of the eco or boutique
variety. Sublime Comporta is where Europe’s honey-limbed fashion and finance crowd head with their sandy-mopped children. We arrive in the middle of an insanely hot summer (the car’s temperature gauge at one point flickers to 47C).
The hotel has 23 bedrooms and suites, as well as 14 glass and timber “cabana” villas dotted through the country estate. Well-designed, each with its own plunge pool shaded by the cork forest, they are a slick blend of rustic-luxe. There are bikes to borrow and a separate main house with two restaurants and another pool and fire pit. The laid-back beach vibe interior of cool white linen and bleached wood is the perfect antithesis to the head-popping temperatures. The Teen and Teen-to-be are, of course, ecstatic that the Wi-Fi works.
For our first night, we head to the Sem Porta restaurant in the main house, where devices are put down long enough to taste the “best lamb ever”. We take our drinks by the fire pit and chill out under the starburst Alentejo sky before a dreamy sleep in the forest of silence.
The next few days are spent in a beachy slumber, dipping our toes into the sea or the beachside restaurants. Guide books will tell you the must-visit is Sal on Pego beach, but for fresh fish and tapas you are unlikely to be disappointed anywhere.
We can quite happily spend seven days wafting from the beachside to a restaurant terrace and back again, so this was pretty much the perfect holiday. Yet, with the temperature dial not dipping much below 40C, the day we receive a text warning of forest fires seems like a good day to head out for a boat trip.
We head to Troia Marina to pick up a catamaran for an eco dolphin safari. Vertigem Azul offers twice daily tours of the Sado estuary where there is a thriving colony of bottlenose dolphins. The crew help monitor the group, and their intimate knowledge of the dolphins’ movements means the boat has a 95 per cent sighting success rate. We see 22 of the 38-strong colony, including two calves born last summer.
It’s a rookie error to spend too much time in Lisbon in summer. Better to visit in spring or autumn. In summer, we usually head to Cascais — a buzzy beach town within easy reach of the city by train for day trips and the rugged coastline and wild surfing beaches, such as Guincho, 8km to the north. If you don’t have a car, there is a cycle path connecting Cascais to Guincho.
And so it is in these familiar surroundings where, after our blissed-out beach week in Comporta, I find myself immersed in nostalgia for our summers past. I also realise how lucky my children are to have this pretty little town as their childhood summer memory.
Cascais is developing a reputation for being an art destination, thanks to the Paula Rego museum. Visitors often come to just see the building itself, designed by eminent Portuguese architect Eduardo Souto de Moura.
The tourist art trail extends to the Pousada & Art District. It’s here you will find the Pestana Cidadela, where we spend our second week. Built in a converted 16th-century fortress, it is the result of a national architectural competition not only to transform the military fort into a luxury hotel, but to celebrate local artists, too. Minutes away from the beach and town centre, built around a quiet courtyard, this beautiful hotel hosts a changing roster of sculptures and working artists in its studios.
Many of the rooms are decorated by local modern artists, while Pestana Cidadela ticks all the boxes of a five-star hotel. There’s an indoor pool and another on the roof overlooking the marina. Neither pool is huge, but I guess that’s what the sea is for. The Teen and Teen-to-be say the spa makes the hotel smell “like Uncle Richard’s house” (their godfather, who has a penchant for an expensive scented candle).
The best of the two restaurants is the Taberna da Praca, situated in the courtyard, next to Deja Lu — a wonderfully idiosyncratic bookstore. Of course, being a few minutes away from town means you are never far from a bustling bar or restaurant. Head past the main square to the restaurants in the side streets instead. Our favourite is Mariscaria, where you can get seafood platters to share for a good price. Sitting on the terrace being serenaded by the “happy guitar man” (he’s there most years), even the Teenager manages to raise a smile.
Walking back, it is still a balmy 32C at 11pm, and a beach volleyball tournament is in full swing, so we stop on the sea wall and tuck into pudding from the churros van. It is another perfect Cascais night, adding to those family holiday memories.
The next week is spent discovering a new beach — Cabo da Roca. Locals call this “coconut beach” after a club called Coconuts that was open here in the 1980s. The club is long gone, but the beach is sweet and sheltered and where locals head on account of the inlet warming up the cold Atlantic waters, which can still deliver a shock in the heat of the summer.
Our last days are spent with cousins, uncles and aunties. Everyone takes August off here and these lucky Lisbonites never have to travel too far to get the holiday feeling. Pool-lunch-beachdinner is the rhythm of most days, but day trips to Lisbon or the palaces of Sintra are close by.
A last family meal is held at the Jardim dos Frangos, (or as I call it, Nandos: The Original). It’s the second time I’ve eaten meat all holiday, hardly a chore in a land that has 365 recipes for cod. Jardim dos Frangos is a local favourite — noisy, hot and fun. I look around the table: heads thrown back in laughter; phones and devices finally having lost their appeal. Later, as we make our last beach walk serenaded by the happy guitarist (who has found a new spot by the sea wall), I reflect. Yes, it has been the perfect family holiday. Ghosts are put to rest for another year.