Beach, pool, kayak, diving, hiking, sardines, terraces, water park, boat trip, visit to the caves and repeat! Portimão has much more than that! Whether you are on vacation or living in this city, take our advice: take a break and visit the main cultural centers of Portimão!
Did you know that the seventh president of the First Portuguese Republic, Manuel Teixeira Gomes, was born in Portimão? It's true, and in his honor, the house where he was born has been preserved and used as one of the great cultural centers of Portimão.
It is a beautiful 19th-century building, located in a noble area of the city, next to the Arade river and near the Bivar Palace. A building where, in 1860, the notable politician and writer Manuel Teixeira Gomes was born.
Today it is a space of culture and art, that portrays the life and work of Manuel Teixeira Gomes, by means of an exhibition room, documental fund, and virtual center. But it also gives place to gatherings, recitals, workshops, ateliers, and exhibitions! Even, to open the doors to culture, Casa Manuel Teixeira Gomes dedicates a room to local artists, allowing them to exhibit their work: from painting to photography, through poetry, music, and theater.
Discovered at the end of the 19th century, the Megalithic Monuments of Alcalar (a few kilometers from Portimão) show how, around 5000 years ago, an important prehistoric community lived:
- First, the visitor realizes that the settlement was located in a strategic area to ensure their safety, as the village was defended by walls, trenches and embankments, where homes were built and megalithic tombs were constructed.
- Second, understand how this community lived and worked, through the preserved artifacts.
- Third, understand their relationship with death, through the importance they gave to the megalithic necropolis and the way they built the different types of graves, from the collective graves to the individual graves, destined for the village chiefs and their relatives.
If the subject interests you, take advantage because two of these monuments are open to the public and allow direct contact with the processes and materials used in their construction.
And to add to this discovery, we suggest a visit to the Alcalar Interpretation Center in Portimão Museum, to take a closer look at some of the original pieces found in the different monuments and in the town.
Alcalar Interpretation Center
At the Alcalar Interpretation Center you can better understand how the prehistoric community functioned: How did they manage to transport huge stone blocks 5000 years ago? How did they learn to make pottery? How did they hunt? You can get these and other answers in a wide range of activities at the Alcalar Interpretation Center, which include guided tours for "a day in prehistory," "sounds of nature," "hunters of prehistory," and "monument builders."
Fishing center and source of great underwater and archaeological discoveries, the city has a very rich history that you can get to know on a visit to the Museum of Portimão.
It is in an old fish canning factory, on the city's riverfront, that this cultural space operates, showing how the history of the region is deeply related to the natural resources that, of course, have a strong fluvial and sea relationship.
At the Museum of Portimão you can learn about the ancient processes of transformation and preservation by salt of various species of fish, as well as the important fishing and canning industry that occupied the banks of the Arade.
Besides the permanent exhibition "Portimão, Territory and Identity" that shows the origins and the evolution of the community, Portimão Museum has a diversified cultural program.
If you like theater, you have to know the program of the Municipal Theater of Portimão! And if you like music, dance and cinema, too! The Municipal Theater of Portimão is a large, modern and well equipped space, which includes a large auditorium with 454 seats, a smaller auditorium with 162 seats, a Coffee Concert, a Black Box and even a foyer, exhibition room and rehearsal room, among other valences that show various artistic expressions, targeted for different types of audience.
Besides giving color and life to the city of Portimão, it is considered a space of conviviality between different local communities and between local communities and visitors and artists.
And finally, a suggestion for the younger crowd. The Portimão Pedagogical Farm! It is a space to re-approach the countryside, which shows to an urban population, rural activities. It includes a vegetable garden, a space with aromatic herbs, different fruit trees and many farm animals, such as horses, cows, donkeys, sheep, goats, pigs, ducks, rabbits and chickens.
And after exploring Portimão's Pedagogical Farm, visitors still have the chance to try out some traditional crafts: feeding animals, making bread, milking cows, making cheese, and baking cakes and sweets. Is that all? No, they can also take part in workshops on drama and dramatic expression, collecting sounds of nature, recycled paper, painting and making ecological toys, among other activities.
Cultural centers near Portimão
If you are willing to go a little further, to satisfy your soul and improve your general culture about the Algarve area, take note of these tips as well!
Lagos Cultural Center
Plastic arts, theater, music, ballet... If you like all forms of artistic expression, you will like the Lagos Cultural Center. Equipped with three rooms for temporary exhibitions, two animation rooms and an auditorium with capacity for 300 people, this center holds different types of congresses, colloquiums and conferences.
António Aleixo Cultural Center in Vila Real de Santo António
It is in one of Vila Real de Santo António's historic buildings, but that is not the only reason it is worth a visit! The António Aleixo Cultural Center regularly hosts fantastic painting, sculpture and photography exhibitions!
Gallery Palace in Tavira
The Gallery Palace is located in an area where an ancient Phoenician settlement lived and in one of the most representative buildings of Tavira's civil architecture. It works as a cultural hub of the city, in an enclosure that includes two auditoriums and exhibition rooms where you can get to know some contemporary artistic expressions, as well as the history and heritage of the county.
Vila do Bispo Cultural Center
It has a library, exhibition room, multimedia room, bar and auditorium for various events, such as concerts, conferences, plays and cinema. This is the Cultural Center of Vila do Bispo, right in the western end of the Algarve!
As you can see from the number of cultural centers in Portimão, going on vacation or living in Portimão does not mean spending time at the beach, wasting opportunities to enrich yourself artistically.
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