Want to beat the crowds in ‘the new Spain’? Try the train

The end makes for a good beginning. Portugal’s south-eastern railroad terminates at Vila Real de Santo Antonio, a fishing town overlooking the mouth of the Guadiana River. It’s at once a dead-end and a prelude, the completion of one country and the birth of another.

On the river’s opposite bank, the Andalusian town of Ayamonte blazes white; onward travellers take a ferry to this Spanish outpost or cross the bridge four kilometres upriver. But our journey is spooling in reverse; we alight at the final stop, beside an art deco headhouse freshly whitewashed and tiled with sky-blue azulejos – the ubiquitous glazed tiles introduced to Portugal from North Africa in the 13th century.

Vila Real De Santo Antonio is at the end of the line.Credit: iStock

To reach this frontier, my son and I arrive late at night at Faro International Airport, gateway to the Algarve. A stroppy immigration official delays our release into the warm, penumbral air; the last bus to Faro has just departed. Taxi driver Emiliano drops us at our hostel in Faro, and advises us to visit the fish market in his hometown, Olhao.

“You have more chance to see fishermen coming from the sea,” he says. “Working people, vegetables from the countryside. It’s nice there.”

Lagos, two hours’ west of Faro, is said to be the hipper of the two cities. Our response, of which Emiliano approves, is to set off in the opposite direction, passing Olhao on our way to Vila Real de Santo Antonio. This instinct aligns with the government’s Tourism Strategy 2027, which encourages tourists to venture beyond Portugal’s hotspots. Rail mobility is one of the improvements underway; the campaign, launched in 2016, is already reaping benefits – in 2023, Portugal was the fourth most-Googled destination after Greece, Spain and Italy.

Lighthouse in Vila Real de Santo Antonio.Credit: Alamy

Though it’s the tailend of spring, Portugal’s hotspots are already blistering. A week from now, elbowing our way up the streets of Lisbon’s trendy Bairro Alto district, we’ll contribute to the nascent menace of overtourism. But there’s breathing space in the salt-scrubbed south-eastern corner of Portugal.

We’ve put our faith in the national railway, Comboios de Portugal, with some apprehension. The network is constrained by industrial strikes and a compact configuration. Anchored to the coastline, it splays into the hinterland like the fingers of an outstretched hand; one can only go so far before the line runs out.

It’s with relief, then, that we find the train idling at Faro Railway Station the next morning. It lumbers to life nine minutes late, limping along the tracks as though emerging from a torpor. Stiff joints are soon lubricated. Salt pans, mudflats and orchards flash by and beyond the dunes lies the Ramsar-listed Ria Formosa, a sinuous lagoon system and migratory bird habitat spanning 60 kilometres of coastline. The conductor checks our tickets – a charmingly old-school custom employed on all intercity trains.

Portugal might well be the new Spain, but we’re the only tourists to disembark an hour later at Vila Real de Santo Antonio. Praca Marques de Pombol is empty; we stand alone on sunburst-patterned cobblestones anchored by an obelisk and encircled by buildings constructed in the geometrically precise Pombaline style.

The lighthouse at the end of Avenida Ministro Duarte Pacheco appears to be marooned inland, but its looming lantern has provided salvation to tugboats chugging upriver and ships adrift at sea.

Nearby, the Monumento ao Pescador commemorates the town’s tuna and sardine industry – and prompts thoughts of lunch. The marina might be clogged with boats, but there are plenty of tables free outside Honoritos, a restaurant on the esplandade.

Vila Real de Santo Antonio from above.Credit: iStock

“I think this is a bit of a hidden gem,” says my son, favouring my sardine pate over his Sardinian pizza.

This simple pleasure is amplified by the roving band of Portuguese guitar, accordion and double-bass players, the patron breaking into accompanying song, the fishermen casting their lines and, across the river, Spain’s wind turbines spinning white against a sky glazed blue as the azulejos.

“Is this the train to Olhao?” I ask a man striding along the platform back at the station. “Yes,” he snips, climbing into the driver’s compartment and shutting the door behind him.

A foolish question, admittedly; there’s only one direction in which we can travel – westwards, past telephone poles topped with stork nests, pink oleanders drunk on heat and light, Baia oranges drooping so fulsome beside us, we might reach out and pluck them.

The fish markets at Olhao.Credit: iStock

The fish market is closed by the time we reach Olhao. Nearby we find the Jardim Pescador Olhanense memorial. On it, painted azulejos depict the men who sailed to Brazil in 1808 to deliver good news to the Portuguese colonial court – Napoleon’s troops had withdrawn from the Algarve.

Meandering back towards the station along the Path of Legends, a route linking the historic quarter’s main squares, we come upon a fishy tale: a sculpture of the wide-eyed boy said to have appeared before fishermen returning from the sea on dark nights.

Such gloomy apparitions are vanquished on the short train ride back to Faro; the Ria Formosa laps the tracks, its seabed radiant with sunlight.

The slow train to Faro.Credit: iStock

There’s no direct rail link between Faro and the Alentejo city of Evora, 170 kilometres due north. We must take the train all the way to Lisbon’s outskirts before doglegging eastwards. The journey takes not much longer than it would by road. On the first leg we travel on the high-speed Alfa Pendular, which has toilets, power points, a cafeteria and a refreshment trolley from which we purchase pasteis de nata before we’ve even pulled out of Faro.

Speed blurs villages huddled around church spires, stations affixed with bright azulejos, shuttered homes – do they belong to the many expats living here? – sprawled indolently across hillsides. Graffiti has made stained-glass of the train windows on one side; sunlight pours through them, illuminating the carriage like a cathedral.

At Pinhal Novo we change lines, stepping into an older compartment devoid of graffiti but juicy with colour. Yellow formica tables, lime-green curtains, turquoise upholstery: a retro relic streaking across plains studded with cork oaks and blanched by sunshine.

At the line’s terminus, Evora Station, my son helps a couple from New Zealand unload their bicycles from the train. At the tailend of a “bike-packing” holiday, they’re visiting the city before flying home in three days’ time. “We ran out of time to cycle here,” says the man, “so caught the train instead.”

Evora’s UNESCO World Heritage-listed historic centre is uniformly whitewashed and painted with yellow trim. We climb cobbled staircases and weave through alleyways towards the Roman Temple ruins and Evora Cathedral. Here, it’s said, the flags from Vasco da Gama’s first expedition fleet were blessed in 1497; the explorer’s story is painted into life on the azulejos decorating Evora Station’s walls.

The Cathedral of Evora.Credit: iStock

The Capela dos Ossos (Chapel of Bones) is the only place with a queue forming; more visitors will arrive, no doubt, when the high-speed Lisbon to Madrid railway, which will pass through Evora, opens (if on time) in 2026. The end of the line will become a thoroughfare, a tantalising stop between the capital cities of two of Europe’s most fashionable destinations.

Next morning, we’re surprised to see the bike-packers on the train to Lisbon. “Catching the last one out before tomorrow’s strike,” says the woman. “Don’t want to miss our flight!”

The Alentejo dissolves behind us; within an hour we’re cruising high above the Tagus River on the 25 de Abril Bridge, tracing the Aguas Livres Aqueduct, pulling in beneath the monumental trusses of Lisbon Oriente Station.

We farewell the bike-packers and take the metro to Santa Apolonia Station in Alfama, Lisbon’s oldest neighbourhood.

The locomotive halts inside the train shed; tomorrow it will sit idle. My son and I will walk hither and yon, ascending the streets of this higgledy-piggledy neighbourhood upon which Lisbon was founded. We will find at the city’s beginning, a very good place to end.

THE DETAILS

TRAIN
Rail Europe’s Portugal Pass costs from €110 ($180). Individual tickets can be booked on the Rail Europe app. Seats for intercity and Alfa Pendular trains must be reserved at the station at additional cost. See raileurope.com/en-au
For strike updates and timetable changes download Comboios de Portugal’s app. See cp.pt/passageiros/en

STAY
Twinshare rooms with shared bathroom at Hostellicious in Faro from €45 ($75). See farohostel.com/en/hostellicious
Twinshare rooms at Evora Olive Hotel from €70. See evoraolivehotelevora.com-hotel.com

FLY
Etihad flies daily from Sydney and Melbourne via Abu Dhabi to Paris (CDG). See etihad.com/en-au
easyJet flies twice weekly from Paris (CDG) to Faro. See easyjet.com/en

The writer travelled at her own expense; her Portugal Pass was provided by Rail Europe.