Country Article / Postcards

Rattling South, to the Silver Coast

Date: 04/02/2007

Surrounded by students and weather-beaten men in flat caps, I’m on a train rattling south through Portugal’s Beira region toward Figueira da Foz. I thoroughly enjoy rail travel. Unlike highway travel, more of the countryside is visible.

Portugal’s green and wooded central region is gorgeous. Springtime meadows are carpeted in wildflowers: gold and silver daisy-like blooms, mauve snapdragons, pale yellow primulas, and scarlet poppies. Storks build their straggly nests on top of pylons and wildfowl weave in and out of the reeds of the Aveiro lagoons. Some trees are laden with oranges; other are clouded in lacy white blossom. Little old ladies wearing long gray socks potter among their cabbages and onions.

Many Americans associate Portugal solely with Lisbon and the Algarve, the country’s southern coastal strip. But the Algarve has become over-priced and overbuilt. So, on this trip, I’m concentrating on central Portugal, both inland and along the Costa de Prata--the Silver Coast. Washed by the Atlantic, it takes its name from the light silvering of the ocean.

I flew into the northern city of Porto, then took the new metro direct from the airport to Campanha railway station. It couldn’t be simpler. A ticket costs the equivalent of $2.40, far cheaper than a $25 taxi ride. I was quite taken with the poems on the Metro--they were all translated into English. (In taxis, you don’t usually get to look at poetry!) As I intend visiting a few seaside places, getting a seat opposite a verse that translated as The Sea seemed pleasingly apt:

Of all the places I have found
None inspires a love more profound
Than this sandy strip of naked ecstasy
Where sea, wind and moon are one with me

The well-patronized trains are undoubtedly not the place to practice "naked ecstasy," but you get the feeling that people enjoy life. Rural ways seem healthily intact and almost every village has its own station. Often adorned with blue and white picture-panel azulejo tiles, some stations are like works of art. Others could do with a face lift, but the shabbiness is usually more appealing than appalling.

Most stations have a bar doubling as a pastelaria--a cake and pastry shop. (The Portuguese must be Europe’s most sweet-toothed nation.) Changing trains in the university city of Coimbra, a coffee and a custard tart called pasteis de nata cost $1.50. And on-tap Sagres beer is $1.20. But I’ll be sensible and resist that until I reach my first destination...

Steenie Harvey
Roving Europe Editor, International Living

Editor's note: Steenie's ramblings through Central Portugal will be well documented in The European; sign up here for your free subscription.