In praise of the Algarve’s little charmer
‘ GRRR!’ cries Miguel. ‘Aaagh!’ bellows Felipe. ‘Wow,’ I say. Portuguese farmers are stronger than they look. My friends and I are in the town square of Tavira, a Roman settlement near Faro on the Algarve, where local farmers and fishermen are competing in the town’s annual strongman contest.
The square, bound along one edge by the River Gilao, is designed as an amphitheatre and it makes a dramatic setting for Miguel and Felipe’s attempts to lift the increasingly unwieldy agricultural objects: thudding blocks of wood, tractor tyres, huge coils of cable. Throughout their toils they are looked down on by another image of strength: Tavira’s Moorish-era castle.
It’s late evening — night really, around 10pm — and families with small children are embracing the spectacle, then taking a stroll through the adjoining small park, populated with terrapins in the fountain and statues of poets beside the benches. The warmth of the day has subsided to an even 20c and the surrounding restaurants are doing a roaring trade.
We had flown into Faro and headed immediately to Tavira, a 45-minute drive from the airport. Here, you can see the Algarve coast as the Portuguese see it: without high-rise hotels and the five-star golf courses. Instead, you get charm, history and local pastries.
Six of us are renting an airy apartment in an old townhouse for £800 a week — far less than staying in one of the major coastal resorts. Tavira does have a beach; actually an island reached by a five-minute ferry ride from the river dock,
Inspired by the strongman contest, we book ourselves in for a herculean feast at Snack Bar Gilao. Don’t be fooled by the name — it’s a decent bar-restaurant in Tavira’s old indoor market.
The waiter recommends the cataplana, a dish of prawns, clams, rice and tomato named after the clam-like hinged copper pot in which it is cooked. It’s not all that cheap — €28 (£22) for a two-person cataplana — but it’s rich and succulent, and there’s a lot of it.
We drink plenty of vino verde (green wine). The green indicates not its hue, but its youth, which gives it a slight effervescence.
Wine becomes a feature of our trip as the next day we set off to a nearby winery, the — ‘winery of the singer’. The name refers not to some long-gone chanteuse, but to the current owner: Cliff Richard, the Peter Pan of Plonk.
The old crooner bought the place some years ago and it now produces up to 200,000 bottles a year — mostly a drinkable red, but his favourite is the sparkling pink.
Sitting among the vines, we pop open a chilled bottle to sip in the afternoon sun, and start singing Summer Holiday with gusto.
TRAVEL FACTS
FLIGHTS to Faro from Stansted with Ryanair (ryanair.com) start at £40 return. Self-catering apartment from 08712 460000 holidaylettings.co.uk.