Comporta: A (not so) well-kept secret

Ask anybody what fascinates them about Comporta and the answer will also be different, but there arewords that describe it. Simple, enigmatic, quasivirgin nature, comforting. The international elite seem to rediscover it each summer, giving it a reputationas the cool place to be, a hidden destination that brings artists and jet setters together, the epitome of luxury. Phoebe Philo, the iconic creative director at Céline, said that the chicest thing in the world is when you don't exist on Google – Comporta has gone beyond that phase, but the cloud over this paradise is still the same one that gave it a place in the sun. After all, it was and is a place that people discovered through the like-minded. Comporta went through peculiar days that revolutionized its peaceful routine on the shoresof an Atlantic that breaks along kilometers of dunes: long story short, the history of its coolness begins around the 1980s, when Pedro Espírito Santos and his cousins started buying and renting fishermen's huts that were on the family property, Herdade da Comporta, and bringing their international friends to visit, well-known names from the world of art, film,the aristocracy and business. Comporta is now a walk of fame, with regulars like pop star Madonna, Belgian designer Vincent Van Duysen, actress Julianne Moore and fashion designer Christian Louboutin, but its local stars are dazzling too, like Nuno Carvalho, a builder of cabanas that make you want to move house, Sílvia Rosa, a chef with a handful of seasoning from Retirodo Pescador, Júlio Maria, master of antiques and big little treasures, depending on how you look at them, and Carlos Gomes, who built an empire through the Gomes minimarket. The symbiosis that comes from outside and the natural resistance to change are the yin and yang that gave it an identity of its own, one that sets it apart from other similar parts of the country and makes it genuine.

Shops and luxury hotels go hand in hand with people’s homes with garden gnomes at the entrance. There is still more than enough room for the future to arrive, but history (always cyclical) shows us that Comporta was always one step ahead. Men and women toiling in rice fields from sunrise to sunset. There were no roads, the pathways were dust and dusty and instead of houses, there were thatched reed cabanas. This was in the 1950s, shortly after Herdade da Comporta was bought by the Espírito Santo family from the English Atlantic Company, which had owned the land for almost three decades, since 1925. The land was made fertile, marshland was transformed into rice fields, granaries, workshops, a canteen, bakery and school were built, pine trees were planted (up to the 1920s, Comporta consisted of barren sands and uncultivated marshland, earning it the name ‘Metropolitan Africa’). At that time – much like today – Comporta was an isolated world, like an island that acted as a society on a small scale, with a hierarchy based on social stratification, as Ana Duarte, a researcher at the Rice Museum, described it. Life was hard and slow, but the symbiosis brought benefits here: both at the time of the ‘English’ and at the time of the Espírito Santo family, people knew about everything modern (the people living in this microsystem had access to the cinema, they watched artists perform at the São João festivities). It’s a bit like what Saramago wrote – sometimes you have to leave the island to see the island. You can't see yourself if you don’t leave yourself, and if there's one unfathomable characteristic, it’s that you can still go to Comporta and forget about everything. The magnificence of finding a place like this is that there's no starting point, there's no journey, no goal – the very existence of Comporta is enough, unlike almost all modern conveniences, it's enough and more.

Sempre faltará qualquer guia ou roteiro. Não se consegue imprimir o perfume dos pinheiros, nem a sensação de mergulhar em águas geladas. A paisagem diversificada está por toda parte – praias, dunas, sapais, bosques, salinas, arrozais e turfeiras, o universo foi inspirado no dia em que criou a Comporta. É tão agradável que os pássaros optam por pousar lá em vez de voar para longe, com mais de 200 espécies fazendo dele seu lar. O mar é tão rico como os restantes, onde vivem moluscos e crustáceos, douradas e golfinhos roazes (a única comunidade do país). É isso: a Comporta é imprevisível e talvez seja essa a palavra que procurámos todo este tempo. Tão camaleônico que você pode ir lá uma vez e será como um cenário de cinema abandonado, depois voltar e encontrar uma agitação animada em um bar ou galeria. Mas as comparações são inevitáveis. Saint-Tropez na década de 1970. Ibiza na década de 1980. Os Hamptons na década de 1990.

Diferente de todos eles, a Comporta tem sido alvo fácil de comparação – aquela coisa que temos de comparar locais onde fomos felizes com memórias que sabemos que permanecerão para sempre intocadas, encapsuladas num espaço e tempo em que tudo foi posto em movimento com o primeiro empurrão. Mas não, a Comporta não é diferente de tudo o que alguma vez viu. Diferente de Montauk, Tarida, Trancoso ou Formentera, ou de qualquer outro resort do mundo – e, para ser sincero, muitas vezes nem mesmo igual a si mesmo.

É na sua metamorfose repetitiva, na sua curiosidade aguçada, na sua beleza evidente e nessa luz que nem todos podem alcançar, permanece para sempre jovem, guardando o segredo mais bem guardado da Europa.