São Martinho do Porto
| São Martinho do Porto | ||||||
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| Basic data | ||||||
| Region : | Centro | |||||
| Sub-region : | Oeste | |||||
| District : | Leiria | |||||
| Concelho : | Alcobaça | |||||
| Coordinates : | 39 ° 31 ′ N , 9 ° 8 ′ W | |||||
| Residents: | 2868 (as of June 30, 2011) | |||||
| Surface: | 14.64 km² (as of January 1, 2010) | |||||
| Population density : | 196 inhabitants per km² | |||||
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São Martinho do Porto is a Portuguese city (Vila) in the Alcobaça district and in the Oeste sub-region . It is located on a lagoon that opens only with a narrow passage to the Atlantic Ocean . According to its own information, it has 5000 permanent residents (in the 2001 census: 2644) and an area of 14.9 km². It borders to the north on the municipality of Famalicão in the district of Nazaré , to the east on the municipality of Alfeizerão and in the south on the municipality of Salir do Porto in the district of Caldas da Rainha . The place is 14 km south of Nazaré and a good 100 km north of Lisbon .
History of the city
Saõ Martinho do Porto is one of the thirteen historic cities of the Coutos de Alcobaça , the former domain of the Alcobaça Abbey . Before 1303, probably 1257, the abbot Estevão Martins granted it the right of independent use, who also designated Saint Martin of Tours as the patron saint, from where the name of the city is derived. As part of the general reform of Couto at the beginning of the 16th century by King Manuel I. São Martinho do Porto once again received the charter along with a issued by the royal town statute that maintained the obligation to pay tribute to the city of Abbey Alcobaça opposite. The abbey's continued judicial sovereignty was symbolically demonstrated by the erection of a stake , as in all cities and towns of the abbey.
After the abbey was closed as a result of the state-decreed abolition of all monasteries in 1834, São Martinho do Porto first became an independent district, but came under the administrative reform of 1855 as part of the Alcobaça district. In 1866 it was given city rights again. Nothing is left of the historical monuments. The city carries the stake, in Portuguese Pelourinho , as a symbol, but it actually no longer exists. It was sold in a public auction in 1866 and has since disappeared.
lagoon
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The lagoon has always been at the center of the economic development of São Martinho do Porto . It only opens to the open ocean to a width of about 200 meters, then extends into the land at a depth of 900 meters and a width of 1,400 meters. There is only one narrow fairway to get in by ship. Until the 17th century the lagoon, at that time still under the name Lagoa de Alfeizerão , reached a length of almost 3 km to the next town of Alfeizerão, which also belonged to the Alcobaça Abbey, and extended south about 10 km to Caldas da Rainha. Shielded from the ocean by a ridge about 100 meters high, it formed a large natural harbor, on which lay next to São Martinho de Porto, Salir do Porto in the south and Alfeizerão inland in the east. All cities developed into shipping centers with their own shipyards.
The harbor was still navigable for ocean-going ships of their time until the 17th century. São Martinho do Porto, along with Alfeizerão, was one of the three ports of the Alcobaça Abbey. In the shipyards of São Martinho do Porto ships were built for the Portuguese voyages of discovery and part of the fleet with which King Sebastião I (1554–1578) embarked on his tragically ending expedition to Morocco, where he did not come out of the battle of Alcácer-Quibir more returned. At that time, the city was considered an important trading and shipping center.
ruins
Even from this bloom, only a few ruins remain today, most of which are on the southern side of the lagoon, in today's Salir do Porto. There you will find the ruins of the old customs office, the old São Martinho do Porto fort and, high above the sea gate, those of the old Santa Ana chapel , all of which are still awaiting their historical classification.
Tourist development
São Martinho do Porto has an unusually attractive landscape, with the almost circular lagoon, the narrow breakthrough to the ocean, on the southern side of a protected dune landscape and the beautiful mountain ranges. The location made São Martinho do Porto a very popular summer resort in the 19th century. But only a few objects remain of this beach development, which is typical of the 19th century, as they have often given way to modern, high-storey buildings. From the time of early tourism, the listed property Rua de José Avelar do Couto, 3 to 7 , a work by the Swiss-Portuguese architect Ernst Korrodi, built around 1917, should be mentioned, which is a typical example of early leisure architecture. In the last two decades São Martinho has completely changed its face and is now surrounded by urban fringes that multiply the number of residents during the summer. The city also has more than 40,000 visitors annually.
literature
- Maria Zulmira Albuquerque Furtado Marques: Por Terra dos Antigos Coutos de Alcobaça. Alcobaça 1994.
Web links
- Map of the Freguesia São Martinho do Porto at the Instituto Geográfico do Exército
- Page of the Câmara from Alcobaça to São Martinho ( Memento of March 14, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) (Portuguese)
- Tourism site
- 400 photos of São Martinho de Porto
Individual evidence
- ↑ www.ine.pt - indicator resident population by place of residence and sex; Decennial in the database of the Instituto Nacional de Estatística
- ↑ Overview of code assignments from Freguesias on epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu
- ↑ História de Salir do Porto ( Memento of May 22, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) (Portuguese)
- ^ Edifício em São Martinho do Porto. In: Pesquisa Geral - Pesquisa do Patrimonio. Direção Geral do Património Cultural , accessed March 23, 2018 (Portuguese).
