“Every man kills what he loves,” wrote Oscar Wilde. I don’t know if the tourists who visit us love us to the point of annihilating us, but a fact is a fact and a point is everything. There are too many people on our coast. Because of this, this year Quercus awarded 38 fewer “Gold Quality” awards to Portuguese beaches.
The waters of our childhood are becoming dirtier and more polluted. The Algarve lost 26 “golden” beaches and the Tagus and West regions another 24. They failed massively in the water analyzes carried out last year. Don’t you dare swallow a “pyrolith” there.
Just yesterday, in a coffee conversation, someone said that only Moledo and Caminha have beaches. Even better if it’s cold and windy. I found myself forgetting the cup in the air. Beach with an ice cold sea and a t-shirt on? This is not the Portuguese summer.
He then told me about the traffic queues and the crowds, he couldn’t join the war from a place in the sun, he preferred a book in the shade, cold water on his feet, a hero’s swim.
But I belong to summers spent full days at sea, with my body tired from the pounding of the waves. I’ve even been happy in traffic queues, with music accompanying the bridge crossing and beautiful conversations in the hellish stop-and-go.
This sea is still ours, a confusing summer is a Portuguese summer. And, even if the beach is only made of silver, I choose a bikini over a sweater in the middle of August.
