Portimao - Algarve - Portugal

Old Town - All that is left of medieval Portimao are a few stretches of the city walls now hidden by houses. The old town is dominated by the architecture of the late 19th and early 20th centuries: houses on two storeys, with wrought iron balconies and ornate stonework around windows and doors, decorated with balustrades of stone and ceramics and walls covered with tiles. The old palace of the Viscounts of Bívar (18th century), a building of fine classical lines, is now home to the municipal council. To savour the spirit of Portimao, there is nothing better than to sit in the shade of the trees in the Manuel Bívar gardens and forget about time, to watch the fishing boats and pleasure craft motor past and to walk through streets and squares that exude the ambience of an active, hard-working town which has succeeded in keeping pace with progress.

Many of the traditional crafts of the Algarve are to be found in Portimao. Local craftsmen and women continue to make palm and rushwork items, objects in copper and tin, baskets, lace and typical footwear, as they have done for centuries. More recent in origin, but equally creative, are the painted textiles and tapestries produced, which are often decorated with regional motifs.

   Proof of a human presence in the locality since the Neolithic period is furnished by the extensive burial grounds at Alcalar and Monte Canelas and by other archaeological finds scattered across the municipality of Portimao. The recent discovery at Vila Velha de Alvor of what are probably the remains of a village dating from the 2nd or 3rd century B.C. and the archaeological and maritime artefacts recovered from the Arade river and the coastal areas of the municipality throw new light on the importance of the region during the period when Atlantic trade routes with the Mediterranean and North Africa were developing, following the emergence of Phoenician, Greek and Carthaginian factories.
   Although theories that variously identify Portimao with Portus Hannibalis, Portus Magnus and Porcimunt remain controversial, there can be no doubt about the Roman presence in the city and the surrounding municipality. Amphorae, coins, fish-salting tanks, bronze objects, cisterns, sundry building materials, the remains of buildings at Vale de Arrancada, Montemar, Baralha and above all the major “villa” site at Abicada bear eloquent witness to this fact.
   In material terms, the Moorish heritage is restricted to occasional finds of pottery and coins. But the Moorish influence endures in the distinctive shape of chimneys and water wheels, in small chapels and buildings made of the mixture of clay, rubble, sand and lime known as “taipa”, in the region's agriculture and in some of the types of vegetation to be found.
   Modern Portimao came into being in the reign of King Afonso V (1143) with the granting of certain privileges to a settlement which would come to be called Vila Nova de Portimão and around which a ring of defensive walls would later be built. Portimao was ideally placed to enjoy the fruits of the boom in international trade stimulated by the great Portuguese voyages of discovery and prospered as a haven for ships plying the African coast.
   The earthquake of 1755 destroyed much of the town and prompted an economic decline that was reversed only towards the end of the 19th century by the return of trade, exports of dried fruit, milling, fishing and the fish-canning industry, activities which would continue into the 20th century. Portimao was made a city in 1924 by the then President of the Republic, the writer Manuel Teixeira Gomes, himself a native son of Portimão.
   In the last three decades tourism has been the motor driving Portimão's economy and the city can now claim to be the second most populous in the Algarve.