For months I’ve been thinking of writing a nice post sometime in August about my normal vacation in this time of the year: beach, sun and sea in a place relatively unknown in the South of Portugal.
I was planning on giving some info but wasn’t ready to reveal the exact location to the world. Why? Because most people who, like me, are regular visitors there try to keep quiet about it – we don’t want the place to become another spot like so many on the South coast of the country. We like the peace, the quiet and the familiar faces.
I, personally, like the fact that I can go around for 2 weeks wearing flip flops to the beach, the supermarket, the shops, the restaurants and nobody (*nobody*) says anything or looks funny at me. Here you don’t see people showing off their gold watches, flashy cars or designer clothes. People here are relaxing, enjoying Nature and having a good time.
Horror. Panic. A voice screaming “Nooooooo” inside my head. This is what happened when I heard that David Cameron (who happens to be Britain’s Prime Minister, if you don’t know) was spending some time with his family in Portugal and had been spotted in the Aljezur market buying squid for dinner.
Apparently the British press was only worried about David Cameron’s choice of wardrobe while on holiday (which, it seems, has improved). Daily Mail expressed some concern over the PM’s choices of shoes and socks, while The Independent also mentioned the Missus’ green dress (a tad too formal when visiting a market, I’d say). The Telegraph actually went to the point of digging up some previous fashion faux pas by the British PM.
And yet, nobody seemed to understand my agony. Nobody except for one brave soul who was strong enough to write what probably a lot of people are thinking.
While I know that David Cameron was not the first “famous” person to find out about Aljezur (Kirk Hammett from the band Metallica and Eddie Vedder from the band Pearl Jam apparently like Aljezur for surfing) I can’t help but worry about the effects this will have on the region.
While reading several articles about this I couldn’t help but ask myself some questions:
1 – who took the photos? In at least one of them you can see the happy couple *entering* the market, which means the photo was taken from inside, which means… somebody knew he was coming on that day and hour! They’re not the kind of pictures you take with your phone. Hmmm…
2 – how did he find out about Aljezur? I wonder if he was there before he became Prime Minister and stayed at the local camping park. Would he choose a tent, an apartment facing the pool or a caravan?
3 – will all the British tourists now visiting the market give the fish selling ladies extra work by copying their PM and asking all of them for advice, thereby causing enormous queues to the annoyance of everyone else?
4 – will this make people less squirmy at the thought of eating squid?
So, over to you dear readers: Can you help me with some answers?