Sesimbra: A Portuguese gem for over 60 years

It is often said that you can’t go back. Places change, people move on, construction obliterates the view that you fell in love with. Change is inevitable, and as our memories of travel are necessarily infrequent, we embody them with powerful emotions.

I first visited Sesimbra in 1962. I was six-year-old and had broken my knee at our neighbourhood playground. This made my parents’ plans for a late summer holiday in Denmark less appealing. My parents instead chose Portugal, and it was love at first at first sight. I remember little of the place, but much of the smells, so different to London.

The smell of pine trees in the forest, shipping tar and boats at the beach, and grilling fish. I remember being mesmerised by the differences between this fishing village in Portugal and London where I was growing up. And I loved everything about it.

I was back in Sesimbra again last week and stayed, curiously, in the same hotel that we had used those 60 plus years ago, and while almost everything about the village had changed, inevitable after six decades, its soul had not.

Locations have souls. They have characters and flaws; communities have their own peculiar ways of living and offer visitors an opportunity to participate and to enjoy their way of life. Only when the culture and behaviour of visitors and resorts overwhelm the local character, do destinations become uniform and unattractive.

There are gems everywhere, and Sesimbra, like Tossa de Mar in Catalonia, offer visitors a much more localised experience than their neighbouring, and better known communities.

One Mexican resort becomes indistinguishable from another, and Mediterranean communities become conquered by incoming fish-and-chip shops and bland, global souvenir brands.

Somehow Sesimbra has avoided most of these pitfalls. It is still a working fishing community and offers some dry-dock repair facilities to other nearby fleets. People work in the fishing business and others commute daily to a myriad of jobs in Lisbon, only 40 kms away. Tourism is hugely important, but not the only economic opportunity.

And the tourists themselves are mostly Portuguese and others seeking a vacation away from the traditional “package tours”. There are hotels, of course, but many apartments of a wide variety of sizes and standards, none of which are taking housing away from local people.

And the sea. Portugal is dominated by a forbidding west-facing coastline with some dramatic weather and formidable seascapes. The Algarve is well known for its gentle beaches, purely because it faces south and not toward the wrath of the Atlantic. Sesimbra sits on a similar south-facing land and offers a gentle beach and significantly moderated weather to its visitors.

Portugal is a wonderful country to visit and has become a magnet for Canadian snowbirds seeking an alternative to the US for their winter, long-stay escape. It certainly offers all of the main needs for long-stay visitors: comfortable and affordable apartments, good food, convivial locals and decent weather. It is no wonder that an astonishing 728,000 Canadians visited the country in 2025, and that number is increasing.

Like so many places today, Portugal suffers from the “Power of the brand”. Visitors have heard of The Algarve, Lisbon, Porto and a few other destinations, now inundated with visitors, but they leave so many fine locations unmolested. Restaurants serve local foods, prices are in line with the local, rather than incomers’ economies,  sites are less crowded and the local folks are friendlier.

And, as the number increases, the destinations sought are widening. For me, Sesimbra is the perfect location for a long-stay during our winter months. It is comfortable, interesting and lies only 40 kms from Lisbon. You don’t need a car as the local transportation system is very good and extremely reliable.

For golf fans, there are two fine courses within a forty minute drive including the PGA course at Aroeira and Quinta de Peru – for fishers, there are opportunities for deep-sea fishing and the Arrabida National Park offers some tremendous hikes. And, of course, there is history; wineries abound and Lisbon lies only a fifty-minute bus ride away.

 

And it still feels like Portugal, and not an ersatz version of an idea of Portugal.

Yes, Portugal has changed. But Sesimbra still retains the soul of that fishing village I first fell in love with so many decades ago.