Abranda Restaurant / LADO Arquitectura e Design

If the archetypal traditional Portuguese fishing village still exists, then maybe Porto Côvo is this. The mix of whitewashed cottages, cobbled streets, and pretty squares perched on the low cliff tops of the Alentejo coast, make Porto Covo a great escape spot, just 170km south of Lisbon. The historic heart of Porto Covo, Largo Marquês de Pombal, is a marvel of 18th-century popular architecture. The plan of the urban centre reveals a certain geometric proportion of its boundaries and the straight mesh of streets placed parallel and perpendicular.