AI and the Costa Alentejano

The landscape north of Sagres is very beautiful. The road doesn't hug the coast but wanders through the eucalyptus wooded hills a couple of kilometres inland. In late February the roadsides are hedged 22with mimosa. This year we're a week or two earlier than usual so only a few bushes were blossoming. Still, the verges were covered in splashes of yellow sorrel. Under the bright blue sky it all looked very jolly.

At Carrapateira we turned down a minor road towards the coast. The beach car park overlooking the mirror still Ribeira da Carrapateira is a favourite place, a pleasing contrast between the reedy estuary and beyond - wild Atlantic surf crashing onto the desert-like expanse of Praia da Bordeira.

It used to be a great free sleepover spot, but since wild camping has been banned in the national park it has become a favourite lunch stop.

A little over 30kms north the road drops in a series of zigzags into a steep valley, the white town of Odeseixe tumbling down a dark green hillside to the left. Then across the Ribeira de Seixe on a rickety narrow bridge and up the other side; accelerating up

the hill prompting a pleasing low Ducato growl from the van. It's van fun to drive, responsive and rock steady on bendy roads. Quite quick too, I'm constantly passed by similar motorhomes bombing past on the motorway, but I rarely push on beyond 90kph. What's the hurry? At that speed we average well over 30mpg - we may get wherever half an hour later, but Herr Hymer and Monsieur Pilote will arrive poorer!

The river marks the boundary between the Algarve and the Alentejo regions. As the name suggests it means 'land beyond the Tejo'"Do you think it's Portugal's biggest region?" I asked idly. "Probably," Gill replied. Later I sought a more definitive answer, posing the same question to my pocket oracle. ChatGPT answered thus:

Portugal's largest region by area is Alentejo. It covers about 31% of the country's land area, stretching from the southern bank of the Tagus River to the northern Algarve. Alentejo is known for its rolling plains, cork oak forests, vineyards, and historic towns like Évora and Beja.

Kind of impressive, though my pet robot failed to note that these days the region is split into two for administrative purposes, Alto Alentejo centred on Evora and Baixo Alentejo administered from Beja.

Both towns are well inland, which is why perhaps ChatGPT extolled the region's landscapes - rolling plains, cork oak forests, ancient towns - yet failed to mention at all that it also boasts one of the emptiest, most soulful coasts in Europe.

Maybe artificial intelligence is the wrong word for the latest smart arse app on my phone. It is true - it appears to think artificially, but artifice is not the most significant difference between machine learning and human intelligence. More significant to my mind is the fact that artificial intelligence is disembodied. ChatGPT is never going to eat a peach, dive into a crystal clear lake, hear the Goldberg Variations or have sex. Everything it purports to know has been arrived at vicariously. It can learn from previous errors but not from experience. So ChatGPT did answer my direct question more or less correctly,  none of the facts about the area's characteristics were actually wrong, the error was one of omission. Anybody who actually knows the Alentejo surely could not fail to mention the hauntingly beautiful coastline stretching for 120kms south from Troia to the Algarve border.

We were heading for the campsite at Zambujeira do Mar. We've used the place frequently and it has a lot to recommend it. The facilities are excellent, the shop is well stocked, the motorhome service point easy to access, it has a covered heated swimming pool. So unsurprisingly over the years we have seen the place develop from having a handful of winter wanderers pitched-up to being almost full.

The site is attractive, pleasantly wooded  and undulating slightly with hedged pitches accessed from narrow sandy tracks that snake through the trees. Ten years ago when typically a dozen or so vans used the site in the winter months it was easy to find an accessible place near reception. Not so  simple now, we wandered about looking for a place that did not involve an elaborate manoeuvre down the narrow roads, avoiding low-branched trees, untrimmed hedges, awkwardly positioned water fountains, signs, boulders and camouflaged tree stumps. 

Recognising the issue the site has built a new, more open area at the rear of the site specially designed to accommodate motorhomes, however it's the first place to fill-up. We found a pitch in the end but it involved a lot of faffing about on entry and exit, resulting inevitabl grumpy Pete going off on one.

And continues to do so now - big faff = half-baked theory: the reason why the layout of so many campsites is so impractical is to do with when they were first established - in many cases well over half a century ago. Back in the 1960s and 1970s caravans were more compact and campervans much smaller. Both the classic continental VW camper and the British stalwar-Bedford Dormobile were less than 4.5m long. Changing the road layout and marked-out pitches of an established campsite in most cases would probably be too costly, especially one with trees for shade and hedging. Our Bürstner is medium sized at 7m, most A class vans are at least a metre longer. So today's hapless motorhome owners are left struggling to fit their pride and joy into a space designed for something 3m shorter.

In general places designed for motorhomes are easier and are very common across Europe - aires sostas, areas autocaravanas, stellplatz... They're great, but sadly very rare indeed in the UK. I suppose the downside is they tend to be utilitarian - glorified car parks with a service point. What do you want, somewhere charming with alarming overhanging branches or practicality in the form of a soulless square of tarmac?

Of course in many places you don't have a choice. If you want to stay in Zambujeira the campsite is the only option. The village is worth staying in for a couple of days, a fishing village expanded  into a small resort. It's developing slowly, a few more restaurants these days on the pedestrianised main street. 

When we first came here the population looked elderly. In the past five years or so younger people have moved in, at first almost entirely men from South Asia - migrant workers employed as agricultural labourers presumably. Now the population is more mixed - young women and children. Asian stores and restaurants have opened. It feels more vibrant.

The village is set on a spectacular bay with high cliffs and small sandy coves. A coastal footpath runs along the clifftops some of it on wooden walkways to protect the unique local fauna.

A kilometer or two to the north is a small fishing harbour with a few shacks and old cottages on the clifftop above it. In recent years the fish restaurant here has grown in popularity. Today car park was almost full, all the cars were Portuguese. It seems to have a keen local  following. From the reviews online the place appears to specialise in octopus.

A small shrine sits atop a knoll overlooking the wild ocean. Behind its glass door is a statue of Our Lady of the Sea holding a fishing boat. Whenever we have visited here there are fresh flowers placed at Mary's feet. If I fished these wild seas I think I might hedge my bets with a small bouquet whether I was a believer or not.

Next day we headed north to Vila Nova de Milfontes. On the sparsely inhabited coast between Sagres and Sines Milfontes is the only settlement big enough to be considered a town. The place looks bigger than it actually is as the historic centre is ringed by mid-rise apartments blocks which are mainly used as second homes or holiday lets.

There are two campsites in the town more or less next door to each other. Over the years we have used both. Camping Milfontes is the better appointed of the two and tends to be busier, attracting longstayers as well as tourists. However we prefer the other one - Camping Feria. The issue with its slightly swankier neighbour is the same problem as the place in Zambujeira - the attractive woodland ambiance makes manoeuvring into pitches a real pain. Camping Feria does have pine trees for shade too, but they are well spaced in a rectilinear pattern and the roadways are wide so it's simple to pitch-up. 

Admittedly the layout looks monotonous and the place is overlooked by a block of flats, but in the end  practicality wins over ambiance.

The campsite is opposite Milfontes produce market. It offers fresh, unshrink-wrapped fruit and veg, locally  baked bread, a small butchers stall and a huge fish counter selling everything from sprats to sea monsters. If you based your diet purely on what was sold here you would live to be a hundred.

Further on is small Intermarche supermarket, it's tricky to find as the entrance is hidden on the ground floor of a quadrangle of flats. Between the market and the shop you can find most things. The place satisfied Gill's desire for tomato puree rather than polpa or frito but not casarecce, fresh basil or coriander. One of the advantages of living in a place like the UK which lacks a strong national food culture is that we have readily embraced other people's. Consequently all kinds of 'foreign' ingredients are readily available. The reverse is true in places with world renowned cuisine, places where sharing a meal is central to everyday life. Only the most popular pastas can be found in Spain and Portugal just as you will never find chorizo in Italy! Nevertheless we persist with our Italian style diet no matter where we travel because it's straightforward and quick to cook. This matters when we are dependent upon the basic facilities in the van, especially during the winter months when cooler days and early evenings mean it's not a practical proposition to cook outside.

The 'Vila Nova' prefix reflects that most of the town is a twentieth century development mainly from the 1960s and 70s by the look of it. The old town consists of a rectangular maze of mainly single storey whitewashed cottages clustered around the remains of a small 'castelo'.

A big monument erected last year in a small square beside the old fort commemorates the only thing of import that ever happened here - the moment at dawn on the 7th April 1924 when three pioneering Portuguese aviators led by Brito Paes took off from Milfontes beach in a rickety biplane aiming to be the first people to reach Macau, Portugal's most distant colony, by air.

They arrived 76 days later having bunny hopped along the coast of North Africa, through the Levant, The Middle East, the Indian Subcontinent and Indo-China, a remarkable feat of endurance considering the Breguet 16 biplane had an open cockpit.

A later account of the flight publish in 1945 paints a vivid picture of Milfontes before it's 'Vila Nova' expansion.

A humble little beach in the far reaches of the Alentejo”, is how Milfontes was described in 1924, a land with “two dozen poor houses, thrown together without any order near the mouth of the Mira, which silently kisses the whitewashed foundations of a ruined 17th century castle”. The railway station was about 50 kilometres away, the nearest road about 15, thus helping to create “a peaceful little provincial corner, where civilisation has barely reached”.

Of course the place has developed since then, but if you cycle to the end of the promenade to the roundabout overlooking the 'mouth of the of the Mira' then the town still looks like 'a peaceful little provincial corner'. 

There's a lot to like about Milfontes, at first it it can seem a little bland, but on closer acquaintance you discover idiosyncrasies that lend it charm. For example, why does the sculpture on the roundabout at the end of the esplanade resemble one of Captain Troy Tempest's undersea adversaries from Stingray?  It's peculiar, like the way the Brito Paes monument resembles a gigantic Airfix model.

Wooden walkways lead off from roundabout One crosses the clifftops to some shack-like beach bars. The boardwalks protect the littoral's unique flora. By mid-February it's springtime in Alentejo, yellow flowers abound, punctuated here and there with small, exotic looking succulents. It's all very pleasing, turning the clifftops into a gigantic garden.

Another boardwalk zig-zags down the cliffs to the broad beach at the river mouth. It's an epic place, out to sea big rollers effervesce on the sandbar, upstream beyond strange rock outcrops of metamorphosed boulders the river curves towards an undulating line of blue tinged hills. Milfontes is one of those places I know we will keep returning to.

When we were here in 2023 we had lunch in a great café in Largo do Rossio, a small square in the old town. It was memorable not only because the coffee was great and the tostas delicious but also it was pleasingly inexpensive - €12 for two coffees and tostas. At the time we speculated that at those prices the place was doomed to go bust. Last year it looked as we had been proved correct, it was closed, though the place still had equipment and furniture inside. Maybe it's just being redecorated we wondered, more in hope than expectation.

Happily we were right, now called 'Laréu Cafetaria', with cool interior decor and decking at the front with outdoor seating, it's better than ever.

Prices have almost doubled to bring it in line with what you pay elsewhere - so hopefully it will still be here next year.

The signs looked good, the place was busy with tourists, locals and hikers passing through Milfontes walking the Alentejo long distance trail. The menu has developed somewhat since we were here previously. Gill chose avo on toast, I went for a croissant filled with smoked salmon and cream cheese. Both were delicious.

Like in Zambujeira the fishing port here - the 'Porta das Barcas' is situated in a narrow cove a few kilometres north of the river front. I guess the sandbar at the mouth of the Mira is just too shallow to be easily navigable. It's a nice bike ride to the small port, especially in early spring when the verges are covered in bright yellow wild sorrel.

The  mouth of  the Mira may be too hazardous to navigate but the Porta das Barcas seems little better. From the bluff above the entrance you get a spectacular view of the wild, empty coastline. The view south looks so remote it could be Patagonia. 

Northwards is a little softer, less rocky, the cliffs lower, with sorrel covered clefts.

Secreted In between is a mall harbour with evil jagged rocks guarding a narrow, choppy entrance. It looks very dangerous. 

The fishing boats in Zambujeira's porto de barco were small, powerful inflatables, some with twin outboards. The main catch seemed to be shellfish and crustaceans judging by the gear lying about. I had expected that Milfontes' fishing fleet would be the same, but it was tricky to tell from the clifftop as the inner harbour was half hidden out of sight beneath the cliffs.

Curiosity got the better of me and I took a short but steep stroll down the potholed road to the quay.. To my surprise some of the fishing boats were medium sized trawlers. They were all moored up and there was nobody about. A pity really, I would love to have seen how the fishermen manage to pick their way through the wild surf and jagged rocks just beyond the breakwater.

We plan to visit to Lisbon next, staying at the Orbitur in Costa Caparica south of the Tejo. There's a bike track from the campsite to the ferry terminal at Troia. The boat deposits you at Belem, directly connecting with the cycleways that run along Lisbon's waterfront. A bit of urban vibe will do us good - chic, grungy, soulful - Lisboa is one of our favourite cities, youthful and hopeful. Given how the Trump shitshow is dominating our small screens right now we need a shot of optimism.

So we headed north, past Sines. The ancient port was extended and developed in the 1970s as the place where Portugal imports much of its petrochemicasl - like Milford Haven in the UK. No matter how many times we drive past it the sudden change from empty an landscape to one dotted with giant tanks and flaring stacks feels somewhat surreal.

The town itself has older roots and a particular place in Portugal's national psyche as the birthplace of Vasco da Gama. We should visit it one day, we agreed. Not today though, we sped by heading for Comporta, a remote spot at the foot of the Troia peninsula. 

Situated between a remote Atlantic beach beloved equally by surf dudes and nudists and the broad salinas of the Sado estuary, the village has a nowhere in particular sort of charm. It also has a big free moho aire inhabited by people drawn to the allure of nowhere in particular, in other words it's our kind of place.

Storks gather here as well as motorhomers. We took a stroll around the grid of single storey white washed terraces that make-up the heart of old village. "There seems to be fewer storks here than last time," Gill observed." Maybe, or perhaps we've become more used to them so we notice them less, I wondered.

A rough track runs across the salt marshes towards the big estuary. The day was dull but clear, on the horizon we could just make out Sestubal docks' gantries and cranes and westwards a grey line of hills - the Arribada massif we surmised. Comporta is an aimlessly mooching about sort of place, I'm an aimlessly mooching about afficianado I think.

An oldish campervan with Italian plates parked next to us. It's rare to find Italians motorhoming in Portugal. It belonged to a young couple travelling full time with their friendly pooch and a socially avoidant cat. They hailed from Puglia so we ended up musing about the region's delights - Gallipoli, Ostuni, Otranto and pucce, which all we agreed were the world's most delicious sandwiches.

The side of their van was decorated with a couple of dozen small stickers of different national flags, many of them unfamiliar to me. Surely they could not have visited all these places, I mused to myself, but they had. Right now they were headed to Morocco having just completed the Camino de Santiago. Over the past two years they had travelled to Nord Cap, then headed east, spending three months in Turkey before crossing into Iran.

At what point does being intrepid cross the line into foolhardiness? The couple were insistent that everyone they had met in Iran had been very welcoming. On the other hand just last week the BBC reported that a British couple in their late fifties motorbiking across Asia had been arrested by the Iranian authorities and accused of espionage. Maybe having a UK passport in Iran is inherently more risky than being Italian. Also the BBC reported that the British woman was engaged in a research project comparing social attitudes in the countries they crossed. Not a wise move I would have thought in Islamic state with an avowed hatred of the US and its allies.

We love travel but we are definitely not intrepid. I am adept at rationalising this, citing Rebecca Solnit's 'The Faraway Nearby' or asserting, only half jokingly, that there are remote villages in South Yorkshire that exhibit cultural peculiarities more usually associated with recently contacted tribes in the upper Amazon basin. In the end we just have to accept that increasingly we are reluctant to travel anywhere that lacks a sunny climate and a café culture. That being said in the last six months this self imposed constraint has taken us to some amazing places - Japan, New Zealand, Singapore... Where next? I bet Patagonia has some really cool cafés, or somew other spot on the globe with a Hispanic heritage or community of third generation Italian  émigrés.