Where to stay

Casa Da Se The charming 18th-century house in the old town of Viseu is full of antiques, cultural interest and quirky, individual features plus home-made cake for breakfast. Double room with breakfast from £68. Viseu, 00 351 232 468 032, casadase.net

Hotel Casa Da Insua Captivating baroque palace with glorious gardens, rare apple orchard and luxurious rooms. They also make their own cheese, preserves, oil and wine – visit the winery with original 18th-century machinery on show or ask Filomena the secrets of her raspberry jam. Double rooms from £89 with breakfast. Penalva do Castelo, 00 351 232 642 222, casadainsua.pt

Hotel Moliceiro In the best position in Aveiro by the main canal, the smart, well-equipped hotel has some striking themed bedrooms and extremely friendly staff. A very good base from which to explore the beaches, lagoons and nature reserves. Rooms from £85 with breakfast. Aveiro, 00 351 234 377 400, hotelmoliceiro.com

Hotel Quinta Das Lagrimas Lovely Relais & Châteaux mansion with a romantic garden, fine restaurant and fine views across the river to the university and city skyline. There is a choice of classic, garden or modern room, the latter in the spa extenstion. Rooms from £71 with breakfast. Coimbra, 00 351 239 802 380, quintadaslagrimas.pt

Travel Information

The currency in Portugal is the euro. The mainland time zone is Western European Time, which is the same as GMT. High season runs from mid-June to mid-September, and temperatures can hit 32-34ºC in July and August. Winters are mild on the coast, colder as you edge towards the mountainous border with Spain, and wet almost everywhere: prepare for rain between October and March.

GETTING THERE
TAP Portugal (flytap.com) flies daily from London Gatwick to Porto, which is one hour from Coimbra by train.
Easyjet (easyjet.com) offers flights from London Gatwick to Porto, from which Coimbra is an hour’s train journey.

RESOURCES
Centro de Portugal (visitcentro.com) is the essential first stop for anyone visiting the region.
Turismo de Portugal (visitportugal.com), the country’s official tourist information portal, has travel advice on all of Portugal’s regions.

FURTHER READING
The Wine and Food Lover’s Guide to Portugal by Charles Metcalfe and Kathryn McWhirter (Inn House Publishing, £16.95) is an expert, independent and detailed guide to discovering the country, region by region.

Journey to Portugal by José Saramago (The Harvill Press, £10.99) offers superb writing in pursuit of the country’s history and culture.

Where to eat

Prices are for a three-course meal excluding wine, unless otherwise stated.

A Peixaria Tucked away in a back street, fish does not come fresher or finer than at this homely little restaurant supplied by its own fishing boat. Eat fleshy chargrilled sardines, tiny lagoon shrimps, bream with green sauce, and squid doused with oil, onion and parsley. £10 to £25. Alveiro, 00 351 234 331 165, restauranteapeixaria.pt

Arcadas Restaurant Elegant setting in the Hotel Quinta Das Lagrimas for stylish, seasonal cuisine. The Portuguese love of soup is taken to new heights here: a fresh pea and ham soup proved memorable. Three courses from £45. Coimbra, 00 351 239 802 380, quintadaslagrimas.pt Bela-Ria Make your way past the modest little bar to the back room where salt cod is the star, cooked by the president of the Salt Cod Guild (and his wife). £10. Gafanha de Aquém, 00 351 93 948 70 35

Cova Do Finfas Close to the beach, the popular restaurant is run by Sinita, aka ‘Cat Woman’. Her decorative passion for all things feline is immediately striking, only eclipsed by the special sea bass in a crust, brought flaming to the table. Sardines baked in a tile and clams with oil, garlic and coriander are also excellent. £18. Praia da Tocha, 00 351 231 447 017

O Bairro Opposite the fish market, Tiago Santos shows wit and verve in his modern interpretation of Portuguese classics and uses local ingredients with respect. Informal, fun and not to be missed. £20-25. Aveiro, 00 351 918214 242

Paco dos Cunhas de Santar Refined, contemporary cooking in a superbly updated 16th-century setting at one of the region’s best centres for wine tourism. Set menus range from £15 to £60, with wine included. Santar, 00 351 232 960 140, daosul.com

Quinta do Encontro Also under the Santar ownership, equally smart, ultramodern wine tourism centre with a restaurant overlooking the vineyards. Sophisticated cuisine with a choice of menus from £15 to £60 including wine. Suckling pig menu £50. Anadia, 00 351 231 527 155, daosul.com

Restaurant Casa Arouquesa The house’s own rare-breed beef and veal are the twin delights of this modern suburban restaurant, which also boasts one of the top wine lists in the whole country. Around £20 per person. Viseu, 00 351 231 527 155, casaarouquesa.pt

Food Glossary

Amêijoas

Clams, often cooked with white wine, garlic and fresh coriander.

Arroz

Rice

Bacalhau

Salt cod, especially good when cooked assado com broa – oven-baked with a topping of garlicky breadcrumbs.

Bairrada

DOC wine traditionally made with the baga grape. Among the wide variety of styles, look out for sparkling red or white.

Bolinhos

Potato and fish fritters.

Broa de milho

Delicious, crusty bread made with corn or maize.

Caldeirada

Fish stew.

Chanfana

Kid and red wine stew.

Chocos fritos

Fried cuttlefish.

Chouriço

Spicy sausage.

Dão

DOC wine from a higher area in the Beiras with both outstanding red and white wines.

Doce de abóbora

Pumpkin jam.

Enchidos

Charcuterie.

Enguia

Eel.

Farinheira

Sausages containing bread and paprika.

Feijoda

Bean-based stew.

Leitão asado

Roast suckling pig.

Molho verde

Green sauce.

Morcela

Black pudding.

Oves moles

Wafers with custard filling from Aveiro.

Polvo grelhado

Grilled octopus.

Presunto

Cured ham.

Queijadas de Coimbra

Little curd cheese tarts.

Queijo da Estrela

DOP ewes’ milk cheese from Portugal’s highest mountain range.

Rabaçal

An artisan semi-hard DOP ewes’ milk cheese.

Requeijão

Ricotta-style fresh cheese, often served with dark mountain honey.

Robalo

Sea bass.

Food and Travel Review

Centro de Portugal – above Lisbon and the Algarve, below Oporto and the Douro – is a small, diverse region. It’s just an eagle’s flight from the wild, granite mountain frontier with Spain to the luminous beaches and dunes of the blue-grey Atlantic. The rivers and valleys that run steeply east to west across the region link castellated villages, exquisite churches, hidden art treasures, thermal spas, vineyards, forests and cornfields.

At its heart sits Coimbra, the region’s capital, which gave its name to perhaps the most famous melody in the country’s musical history. Also known as ‘April in Portugal’, it is a perfect example of Coimbra fado. The kitsch romantic serenade conjures up the poetry of the vertiginous, cobbled streets and Moorish archways of this ancient university city; its immense academic fortress grandly looking down its baroque nose at the curves of the Mondego River far below. The flowing rhythms of the song reflect moments of love as sweet as the goodies in the fin-de-siècle pastry shops, and of loss as dark as the steaming, tiny cups of coffee that punctuate the day’s routine.

Coimbra is a craggy city with its head in the clouds, the hub from which the Portuguese Renaissance radiated. Tradition resonates. The throngs of students at one of the world’s oldest universities still wear their black gowns at the two riotous annual students’ festivals. Stylised fado is still performed by young men on the steps of the Old Cathedral on hot summer nights. Like the more emotive Lisbon version, the essence of the music is saudade – an ineffable feeling of longing, nostalgia and regret. This streak of melancholy is not nihilistic, but tinged with hope. It reflects, perhaps, a twin spirit shaped both by farewells and reunions, Mediterranean joie de vivre and a more sober, northern sense of order and application.

Near Aveiro, a 40-minute drive to the north-west from Coimbra, the endless lowland waters of the estuary fragment into a spider’s web of streams and sandbanks. Beside the great lagoon, fishermen once painted their houses in barley-sugar stripes to lift their spirits.

João Silva has panned for sea salt here since he was a boy. The day I visited, the road had flooded, and approach was only by boat or foot along the samphire-covered embankments. João soon dispelled concern. ‘It’s the new moon,’ he explained, a big, moustached smile lighting the misty morning, ‘but it brings clean, fresh water into the lagoon and improves the mineral quality of the salt.’

In spring, João puts his work as a lorry driver on hold to turn his attention to the salt pans. ‘Something stirs inside me,’ he says. ‘The salt pans are like a woman. You have to give them love and attention. I can feel her desire in the morning, but if you do something wrong, she’ll give you nothing back. The water shows me when she’s ready; the salt shines like a bride getting dressed in a lacy veil.

‘I feel peaceful when I come here, but a bit sad too. Once, there were 360 working salt pans; now there are only seven. Yet the salt is so wonderful, especially the precious Flor de Sal. It’s hard labour, though – there are no machines here – and my brothers and sons don’t want to continue the work.’

Moliceiro (gondola-shaped boats brightly painted with pictures of saints and singers, priests and bathing beauties) were once used to transport sun-dried salt and seaweed to Aveiro. Famous for ceramics and art nouveau buildings, the former port is traversed by tiny canals, like a diminutive Venetian lookalike. In the fish market, built in the first decade of the last century, there are sandy crates of slithering lagoon eels plus a fine array of bream, lobster,shiny sardines, squid, tiny shrimp, red mullet, bass, clams and other fish but, curiously, no salt cod.

Despite the national passion – there are said to be as many recipes as days in the year – salt cod is now very expensive. The striking modern museum in Ílhavo, nine kilomeres south of Aveiro, tells the fascinating story of the Portuguese fishermen who, since the 15th century, would depart for months in search of the fabled fish of Newfoundland. The cod was salted at sea and, on their return, laid on racks to dry in the sun.

Today, you can buy ready-to-cook frozen or ready-cooked salt cod; it may not be as good as the home-made version (soaked in running water, purists insist) but it still provides the essential taste of Portugal. At the Bela-Ria, an unassuming little restaurant near Aveiro, run by the president of the Salt Cod Guild, they serve codfish fritters, fried ‘cheeks’, feijoada stew with beans, sausage and gelatinous strips of swim bladder, plus shiny, fragrant steaks with rice and potatoes, onion, olives, olive oil – and garlic (always). Above us, as we eat, hangs a faded photograph of fishwives, each holding a salt cod fillet the size of a double bass.

Local sea salt is still used at the Comur cannery where sardines, eels, mackerel, trout, salt cod, octopus, squid and mussels are hand-prepared and packed. The sardines, arrayed in racks, shimmer in their regimental coats of old silver, platinum and anthracite before they are skinned and filleted as required, trimmed and layered in their metal boxes like little tin soldiers. The eels are brined, skewered and deep-fried so each resembles a double golden helix on a stick.

The cannery was the inspiration for a curious riff on tinned produce from the energetic young chef Tiago Santos at O Bairro, a retro-funky restaurant in his home town of Aveiro. There, Santos serves witty deconstructions of traditional dishes such as ‘33cl de caldeirada’ – his take on traditional Portuguese fish stew.

Salt, sea and fish are all connected in the coastal area. They are echoed in the artisan ovos moles of Aveiro – pastries fashioned in the shape of fish and shells. In a country where practically every town boasts its own sweet speciality, it is a distinction to be the only one afforded protected geographic status.

The pastries are edible reminders that egg whites were once used by the Port industry to refine the wine, and by nuns to starch their veils. At bakery Maria da Apresentação, founded in 1882, leftover yolks are used in a recipe from the nearby convent. The fragile mouthfuls are made with communion wafers filled with thick, golden custard. Everything is done by hand: breaking and separating hundreds of eggs, laboriously stirring in a copper bowl over a wood-fired stove and packing the old metal moulds. The paste is also sold on its own in small barrels or ceramic jars, to be enjoyed with sparkling red or white Bairrada wine.

The latter also made a surprisingly good match with roast suckling pig. In Mealhada, the Portuguese love of pork reaches its apotheosis: the small, inland town, which lies between Aveiro and Coimbra, is famed for one thing only, and it’s breathtakingly good. Dozens of restaurants are strung out along the main highway like a piggy shopping mall lit with neon piggy signs, especially packed at weekends when seemingly all of Portugal arrives to eat leitão: spit-roasted suckling pig.

Ideally the young animal should be of the traditional Bisaro breed, and stuffed with a paste of garlic, lard, salt, and black and white pepper. Impaled on a pole that protrudes through the specially designed door of a wood-fired oven, it is turned and basted until it’s the colour of toasted hazelnuts.

The bronzed and burnished result is good enough to tempt St Anthony in the desert: crackling as crisp as cellophane; sweet, luscious fat; and moist, tender flesh. The classic accompaniments are chips or potatoes, salad and a wedge of orange. Little wonder there is, at the entrance to the town, a monument to the suckling pig, ears rampant and stone snout proudly upturned.

Care about origin is equally evident in Casa Arouquesa, a smart suburban restaurant in charming Viseu, where only meat from rare-breed Arouca cattle – a beast found only in Portugal whose beef has DOC status – is used. There are but two dishes on the menu: outstanding steak and even more succulent slowcooked veal brisket.

It was in the unspoiled interior of the Beira region that I also had my first taste of seasonal DOP Serra da Estrela cheese, which comes from Portugal’s highest mountain range. It is made from the raw milk of the bordaleira sheep, which thrive on a diet of wild herbs, grass, gorse blossoms and brambles. At the enchanting, 18th-century Casa da Ínsua, founded on a fortune made in Brazil, there is a small dairy that uses deep purple and gold thistles to coagulate the milk of its flock. Made mainly from November to March, the young cheese is so soft and voluptuous it can be eaten with a spoon; as it ages, it becomes more subtle, supple and dense.

The vegetable plot and orchard is still an important part of Portuguese home life. Cabbage, turnip tops and wonderful potatoes go into everyone’s favourite soups; raspberries, pumpkin, quince, apples and pears are made into preserves; pigs will become hams, sausages, chouriço (Portuguese chorizo) and black puddings (especially good when flavoured with cumin). Foraging, too, has seen a revival in a return to self-sufficiency.

Central Portugal encompasses several DOC wine regions, particularly on the gentle, sandy Bairrada hills, and the cool, dry, higher vineyards planted amid the forests and farmlands of Dão. In late September, under skies picked out in the blue and white of azulejo tiles, I spent a day with the grape pickers at the distinguished Casa de Santar. Harvesting bursting bunches of grapes in a satisfying haze of fruitful mellowness, we were fuelled by pork steak sandwiches and glasses of light, peachy wines, made with encruzado, Dão’s star grape. It was a fitting introduction to a range of varieties that few, outside Portugal, even know exist.

Quinta do Encontro produces award-winning red Bairrada wine and hosts fascinating vinous experiences at their stunning barrelshaped winery. João Carvalho described how producers had divided, post-dictatorship, into traditional and modern camps. But the lines are now blurring, he said. ‘The way forward for us must be to focus on grape varieties. We have over 300 in Portugal, many of which are unique and offer different drinking experiences. I guarantee you will be very surprised…’

In his memoir ‘Journey to Portugal’, Nobel prize-winning writer José Saramago returned to his homeland. The title was deliberate: it was not a journey through the country of his birth, nor in it, but rather an expedition to its core. In Central Portugal, framed by sea and mountain, the spiritual heart of the country meets the geographical in an historical embrace. Like the plangent melodies of the Coimbra fado, it takes a long time to forget.

DON’T MISS

Flor De Sal For information on this hand harvested sea salt contact João Silva on 00 351 962648746, or simply go along to the salt pans in the summer season.
Maria Da Apresentacao Da Cruz There is a tiny counter inside the equally tiny artisan bakery where you can buy the celebrated Ovos Moles directly. Otherwise, look for their beautiful blue and white boxes on sale throughout the town. Aveiro, 00 351 234 422 323, m1882.com
Wine Taste and buy directly from Quinta Do Encontro (Bairrada) and Paço dos Cunhas de Santar (Dão), but leave yourself plenty of time to linger, look around and enjoy the tastings (see also ‘Where to eat’).