Tróia

Across the wide Sado estuary from Setúbal, the sand peninsula of Tróia runs for kilometres between the river’s calm and the open Atlantic: a thin world of dunes, umbrella pines and long beaches, with a Roman city sleeping at its northern tip.

The fish-salting city of the Romans

The ruins at the peninsula’s tip are among the most remarkable industrial sites of Roman Portugal: the workshops of Cetóbriga, where the estuary’s fish and salt became the salted fish and garum sauces traded across the empire. Twenty-five workshops with their great square tanks survive, alongside baths, a paleochristian basilica and a necropolis, in use from the first century BC to the sixth century AD and classified as a national monument. The site is open to visitors, and the story is completed by the salting ruins across the river.

Beaches, dolphins and the crossing

South of the ruins the peninsula turns to holidays: kilometres of fine sand facing the Atlantic, a marina, golf courses and the quiet dune villages of the Comporta shore. The estuary itself is the home of one of Europe’s few resident communities of bottlenose dolphins, watched from boats that cross from Setúbal, and the short ferry crossing remains the classic way to arrive. The hotels and markets of Setúbal stand across the water, and the mountain park of the Arrábida begins on the far shore.

What to see

• The Roman workshops and tanks of Cetóbriga
• The baths and paleochristian basilica of the site
• The long Atlantic beaches of the peninsula
• The dolphins of the Sado estuary
• The ferry crossing from Setúbal

Practical information

Tróia lies on the left bank of the Sado estuary, opposite Setúbal, about an hour south of Lisbon by road or by the ferry from the city’s quays. The Atlantic water is cool and currents run at the river mouth: swim on the guarded beaches, and check the official websites before setting out.

Image credit: Tróia March 2015-1 by Alvesgaspar — CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

For the Roman ruins in detail, see Estação Arqueológica de Tróia.