Portugal’s starlight road
With some of the least polluted skies in Europe, Portugal is a destination to be explored at night while admiring the heavens
WRITER: JOHN C SILCOX
PHOTOGRAPHY: SAM CHRISTMAS
Night school
The bells of Nossa Senhora de Conceição Church ring out 10pm as Miguel Claro slowly rolls along the last few yards of his daily commute to the rural village of Cumeada, Portugal. Parking in front of the old school-cum-observatory, he switches off his van’s headlights and gets out to greet us – taking a second for his eyes to adjust to the engulfing darkness of the night.
Away in the distance the soft glow of LED streetlights rises above silhouetted rooftops, barely registering against the luminous spectacle above. This is what Claro has invited us here to witness for ourselves: a glimmering fresco that covers the heavens, made up of millions of white pinpricks scattered in glorious imperfection. It’s a scene as old the earth itself but from here we could be forgiven for thinking it was almost brand new.
Indeed, talking about novelty here isn’t perhaps as silly as it would first seem. Portugal has only recently gained recognition for being one of the best places in the world to observe the night sky. The epicentre is Dark Sky Alqueva, a 3,900 square mile reserve surrounding Europe’s largest man-made lake of the same name, headquartered here in Cumeada. In 2011, it became the first fully certified Starlight Tourism Destination in the world and has been attracting a growing number of visitors since.
“Portugal is waking up to this immensely unique and valuable natural resource that has long been underappreciated,” explains Claro, who is an astrophotographer and celestial guide at the Cumeada Observatory. “Dark Sky Alqueva is the astronomical equivalent of the giant wave ‘discovered’ by surfers in Nazaré – something that had been hiding in plain sight, waiting for people with the right sensitivity to take a closer look.”
Claro is a deep-space specialist and when he is not taking groups on night-time stargazing expeditions, spends his time photographing far-away objects like nebulae, galaxies, and star clusters. These are things that can look faint and underwhelming to the naked eye or even through an eyepiece of a telescope but explode with colour and detail when photographed. His work is incredible and permanently on display at the observatory. Images of swirling red and pink vortexes full of gas, bright white and blue stars clusters, black holes, yellow solar flares and much more hang on the small building’s walls.
“To get good images you need very specific conditions,” he says. “Luckily here we have excellent weather, very little cloud cover and a lack of light pollution or heavy air traffic, which makes it perfect to shoot the sky. Unlike the coastal areas that have long been developed, the Portuguese backcountry remains scarcely populated and undisturbed. Which makes it much easier to pick up light sources from outer space without interference.”
Tonight, Claro has come to photograph the Orion Nebula and is in a bit of a rush. The moon is in its last quarter and will be rising in a few hours, so he only has a small window of opportunity to capture his shots, so after giving us a quick demonstration of the telescopes he bids us goodbye to concentrate on his work. As we leave the observatory, it’s fun to think of him plunging into a different world, thousands of light years away.
Moon Rock
The next morning, we travel through time rather than space, arriving just before sunrise at the 7,500-year-old Almendres Cromelech, near the UNESCO World Heritage city of Evora. It is the biggest pre-historic monument on the Iberian Peninsula but isn’t gated and can be visited by day or by night, looking especially awe-inspiring in the pale glow of the moon.
Despite predating Stonehenge by at least a thousand years, it was only discovered in 1962 and doesn’t get anywhere near the same footfall or levels of protection. Still for Mario Carvalho, a local guide and experimental archaeologist, it could teach us more about early man’s in-depth understanding of his world, by day as well as at night.
“This stone circle is organised in a very complex way,” he explains, showing us around the site in the early morning light. “Although we don’t fully understand all the particular significance of each stone or the engravings that we have found on them, we can confidently say that the people who built this place orientated it to different directions associated with the equinox.”
According to Carvalho, this is a much more complicated orientation than via the winter solstice on which Stonehenge is directed. To find the equinox means the builders had to spend long periods observing the rise and the setting of the moon and the sun, we’re talking years rather than months. In turn, this means this population was sedentary rather than nomadic, reflecting a monumental shift in human activity at that period.
“It basically shows us the beginning of farming,” says Carvalho. “And all farmers know they need to look at the sky to understand the weather. It’s all reflected on the engravings found on the rock. We can clearly see the shepherds crook engraved onto the rock as well as crescent moons, squiggle lines and other more basic geometrical shapes such as squares and circles, that look a bit like faces.”
“Looking at the stars is part of Portuguese heritage and it has impacted our lives at many crucial periods of history,” he adds. “Sites like this show that from the earliest times we have looked towards the sky for answers. Then during the age of discovery, Portuguese navigators used the stars to guide them to the new world and beyond. It’s interesting that today we seem to have renewed interest in outer space with the dark sky movement and development of the Portuguese Space Agency.”
A constellation of activities
Despite stargazing’s growth in popularity, it remains quite a niche pass-time and one that is a hard sell especially in terms of tourism. Why would people travel all the way to Portugal to see something that they can enjoy at home, for free?
This is a question Apolonia Rodrigues, a travel expert and founder of Dark Sky Alqueva has been working tirelessly to answer.
“Even though we have some of the best night skies in the world they’re not enough on their own,” she explains. “To create a holiday destination, there needs to be a large array of complimentary activities. Firstly, you need the education side, which is supported by the observatory and guided visits to help people understand the importance of what they are looking at. Then you need the wider tourism infrastructure to all compliment the main activity.”
In this light, Apolonia has been working with many local actors to enhance the value of a visit. Now selected local accommodation stays open outside of peak season and offer late check-in times stay open late to receive guests all though the night, off the back of nocturnal excursions. They also have more flexible catering options and packed meals to take out into the field.
“We have also worked with special partners to develop more unique and memorable activities,” she explains. “Moonlight wine tasting, night canoeing and star parties are all very popular with guests and then there are all the other visits than can be added to the region, such as historic visits, cultural centres and fantastic local cuisine. The list goes on and on, there’s a lot to explore in this wonderful country.”
Apolonia sees stargazing as an essential part of Portugal’s sustainable tourism future. Mass tourism is not the aim and preserving a healthy balance between local development and environmental preservation. She is taking lessons learned at Dark Sky Alqueva with her to help found other dark sky reserves further north in the country that also boast favourable star-viewing conditions.
“Developing a dark sky reserve poses a number of challenges,” she explains. “The biggest is working closely with local authorities to reduce light pollution using solutions such as streetlights timers, special shuttering and low emission LED bulbs. Unfortunately, in rural Portugal street lighting is often linked with progress and used as a political tool. We often face a bit of a battle convincing people that it’s in their interest to cut down.”
Above the clouds
The final stretch of our journey takes us uphill on the incredible roads of the Serra Da Estrella, which literally translates as the star mountain range. This is the highest point of mainland Portugal, standing at 1,993m above sea level and boasting the country’s only real ski resort.
Near the summit at sunset, we meet Natalina Correia: a Portuguese national who is on a road trip with her boyfriend and visiting the mountain for the first time. The couple normally share driving duties but this trip she has requested to be solely in charge of navigation, so that she can make the most of the wonderful landscape.
“My boyfriend enjoys driving on more challenging roads anyway and here the main roads are absolutely fantastic,” she explains, gesturing at the snaking grey tarmac that cuts through the bold landscape ahead. “His eyes are glued on the tarmac but I prefer to look out the window. From here you can see all the way from Spain to the sea – it’s incredible. The Portuguese coast is unrivalled for sunsets as it faces due west but up here it’s even more impressive.”
The pair have timed their trip up the mountain top to catch the golden hour and they have settled on a spot, among a few other cars near an abandoned old observatory and Portugal’s highest police station. It makes for a pretty picture: the geometric architecture contrasting against the natural rock formations and the pinky-red sky.
Unlike many sundowner spots, at the Serra Da Estrela the show isn’t over as the light disappears and the darker it gets the more stars come into view. Soon we can observe the milky way in all its splendour, as well as many other planets and stars. We can also see a variety of human lights away down in the valley, stretching out beneath like constellations of their own. It’s an unusual vista, almost like a reflection and also a poignant reminder that it’s not always the light source, on its own, that’s particularly interesting but rather the life it helps to illuminate.