Porto Covo

On the Alentejo’s Atlantic shore, the village of Porto Covo keeps the neat, bright order of a planned seaside place: white houses trimmed in blue around a square laid out in the eighteenth century, with the fort of the Ilha do Pessegueiro standing on its island just off the bay.

The island fort and the planned square

Offshore, the Ilha do Pessegueiro carries the ruins of a fortress built against pirates in the seventeenth century — the fort of Our Lady of the Burning, paired with a battery on the shore — above the remains of a Roman fish-salting factory on the island. The village itself grew from the same maritime world: its central square was laid out at the end of the eighteenth century on a geometric, enlightened grid, and the little fishing port still works in the bay below the houses.

Beaches of the Vicentine coast

The parish’s coast belongs to the protected south-west Alentejo and Vicentine coast natural park, and its string of beaches — the wide Praia Grande with its blue flag and surfers, the smaller Praia Pequena and Buizinhos, the pebble bay by the port — ranks among the most celebrated of the Portuguese coast. Walkers reach the village on the coastal routes that run north towards the cliffs of Sines, and boats work the waters between the village and the island. The Setúbal estuary with its dolphins begins at the far end of the same coast.

What to see

• The planned central square and its whitewashed houses
• The fort of the Ilha do Pessegueiro offshore
• The Praia Grande and its surf
• The fishing port in the pebble bay
• The protected cliffs of the Vicentine coast

Practical information

Porto Covo lies in the Sines municipality, on the Alentejo Litoral, about an hour and a half south of Lisbon by road. The Atlantic front is exposed and the water cold: bring wind protection, respect the flags on the beaches, and check the official websites before setting out.

Image credit: Porto Covo January 2014-10a by Alvesgaspar — CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.