Just as I’ve got used to the idea of being an ‘influencer’, one who influences others to consider Portugal as a destination, a certain discomfort has come about me regarding some of the tools of my trade. Certain aphorisms, upon which I have based my career, if you can call it that, have come into question; some of my galinhas have come home to roost, it would appear.
On one front, I am red-faced and now reticent when it comes to Portuguese comparisons and benchmarks. For many years, I have referred to Aveiro as the ‘Venice of Portugal”, all the while knowing that “comparisons are odious” as John Lydgate said discussing horses, geese, and sheep, of all things, back in the 15th century, and seconded notably by Cervantes, Christopher Marlowe and John Donne, since.
To my recent and aforementioned shame, one of my favourite Portuguese bloggers, Cátia Lima, she of Beyond Lisbon, called this an “idiotic comparison”, adding to her list on a Facebook post: “Madeira is the Hawaii of Europe” (“the slightly less common”), “Ericeira is the California of Europe”, and (“perhaps you remember reading somewhere that”) “Martim Moniz is Lisbon’s Chinatown”. As my face reddened, I could hear her voice in my head, somewhat raised and irate: “Well, I just read that “Braga is the Portuguese Rome!”
I suppose it was only a matter of time before my lazy clichés were rightly trounced like this, so I’ll hold my hands up, issue a heartfelt “Desculpe”, realising that it’s perhaps best that I don’t dwell on the latest odious observation that came across my desk: “Castanheira de Pêra is the Beverly Hills of Portugal”, distancing myself completely from such idle speculation (at least until the dust has settled).
Instead, I’ll move on to a source of greater social stress for me, and another off-the-cuff, easily uttered, and entirely unrelated ‘old chestnut’ (see what I did there?), namely that “Portugal enjoys 300 days of sunshine a year”.
There was a time when this could be shared, willy-nilly, without repercussion or recourse, often alongside that other favourite of mine – “Portugal is a cold country with a hot sun”. I’ve not felt any heat (pun very definitely intended) for the latter (give it time), but oh my word, that other Portuguese lifestyle influencer – The Portugeeza – has taken me to task on my meteorological ‘serving suggestion’.
If you don’t know him, The Portugeeza is quite the controversial figure on YouTube, sharing his thoughts on life here, which can range from ‘Portugal to Pilot European Vaccination Card’ and ‘Portugal’s Minimum Wage Hike: A Slap in the Face to Workers?’, to ‘Portugal’s Digital ID System is a TICKING TIME BOMB!’ (HIS capitals, not MINE!). And it seems he’s been chiding me online for a few months about the sun, or lack of it, which finally boiled over to his online rant – ‘What They’re NOT Telling You About Portugal’, where his beef is laid bare, despite being vegetarian.
“Come to Portugal, they said. Three hundred days of sunshine, they said,” he moans, whilst trudging through his village in the dark, as he’s wont to do, on his regular walk ‘n’ talks. There’s also edited-in highlights (?) where he screams “I’m freezing”, and smashes ice that’s formed on buckets in his garden.
Were I a politician, I might make myself some wiggle room with a statistics-based retort like: “Let me be clear Portugeeza, it’s 300 days worth of sunshine.” And to be fair to me, sunshine does seem to be measured in hours not days, at least according to Wikipedia, where we find that “Continental Portugal receives around 2,300-3,200 hours of sunshine annually, an average of 4-6 hours in winter and 10-12 hours in the summer, with higher values in the south-east, south-west, Algarve coast and lower in the north-west.” I’ll let you do the maths.
And to be fair to him, he does go on to say, from his almost entirely black-screen presentation of nearly 14 minutes: “I’m not trying to knock Portugal, I’m just trying to give you guys a more balanced view.”
So, how about we meet in the middle? Portugal does enjoy a lot of sunshine, and is indeed ‘sold’ around the world on this ‘fact’. BUT it can be cold, wet and damp too, sometimes for days on end, weathered by the likes of ‘disgruntled and damp in Central Portugal’, in housing stock best suited to the sun, and not the lack of it.
Just to be sure, and in the interests of intrepid, scientific-ish research, I will personally be measuring the days of sunshine, which so far seems to have been a terrible experiment to start in October, with an even distribution of sunny and dark days. It, therefore, remains to be seen, in these times of alleged climate change, if the ‘300 days of sunshine’ strapline is a cold, hard truth or as useful as a chocolate fireguard in the globally sought-after Portuguese sun discussed here.
Let’s return to Cátia for her view on this typically pão-pão, queijo-queijo, as Portuguese people tend to be. “It’s an average, it’s statistics,” she says wisely, introducing another well-touted truism to illustrate her point. “Portugal is the country that drinks the most wine, apparently, with 61.7 litres per capita in 2023. Clearly someone’s drinking some 58 or 59 of my litres of wine! Not to mention all the people I know who don’t even drink wine. It’s the same thing with sunny days: my friend in Silves has a lot more sunny days than I do in Sintra, for example.”
Officially, at least according to visitportugal.com, “Winter in Portugal is a very pleasant season, with plenty of sunshine up and down the country and temperatures rarely falling below 10ºC. With an average of more than (my emphasis) 300 sunny days a year, winter here can sometimes seem more like spring and you always need to have your sunglasses to hand.”
On the one hand, and especially in these intense times, words and stats do matter. But so, on the other, does context, meaning and the chance to discuss intention and nuance. So, before you shoot this well-meaning messenger, how about we get Portuguese about this, and you invite me out for a coffee, glass of wine, or even a meal, to dig deeper into the solar statistics.
Until then, and in these dark times – seasonally and politically – let’s go with it as an affirmation, summoning the kind of brightness and light we aspire to enjoy and thrive in. “Project it until you perfect it,” said Myron Golden via my Portuguese friend Vítor whose encouragement is all I need to keep saying it!
By Carl Munson
Carl Munson is host of the Good Morning Portugal! show every weekday on YouTube and creator of www.learnaboutportugal.com, where you can learn something new about Portugal every day!
