Olhão's old town and its cubist houses: what to see and where to walk

Olhão's old town is the tight cluster of white houses between Barreta in the west and Bairro do Levante in the east, right behind the markets and the Ria Formosa. This is the so-called "cubist town": low, box-shaped houses with flat roof terraces (açoteias) topped by little lookout towers known as mirantes and contramirantes. You explore it on foot, through narrow lanes and small squares, and almost every house is somebody's home.

What the "cubist town" actually is

Portugal's national tourism board puts it neatly: climb the tower of the parish church, the highest point in town, and you see hundreds of houses where the pitched roof has been replaced by a terrace, the classic Algarve açoteia. From up there the town looks like a pile of white cubes pressed together at different heights. The Algarve tourism board calls this architecture the defining feature of Olhão and unique in Portugal.

The name has nothing to do with the art movement. It is simply how the place looks: plain white blocks, no roof tiles, stacked on several levels.

Terraces, lookouts and chimneys

APOS, Olhão's heritage society, describes the traditional house layer by layer:

• Açoteia: the flat terrace covering the house, always with a high parapet. It was used for storage and for drying laundry and fruit, such as figs.
• Pangaio: a small room built in one corner of the terrace.
• Mirante: a second terrace on top of that room, used to watch boats coming in and check the state of the sea.
• Contramirante: occasionally an even smaller room sits on the mirante, always in a corner, with a third terrace on top.

The result is a series of small stepped pyramids. Neighbouring houses are rarely the same height, so the whole skyline looks jumbled.

Look out for the chimneys too. According to APOS they are cube-shaped and plain, without the lacy fretwork you see elsewhere in the Algarve. At street level, doors and windows are framed with raised plaster mouldings, many front doors have a step up, and the walls are whitewashed to keep the heat out.

Why it looks like this: from straw huts to stone

According to the town council, the first fishermen settled on Olhão's beach in the early seventeenth century, against the wishes of the authorities in Faro. The Algarve tourism board says they lived in huts of wood, reed and straw. The first stone building was the parish church, begun in 1698, and the first masonry house only appeared in 1715. An inscription on the church front still recalls the days when there were only huts.

And the Arab influence? In Olhão everyone knows it: the cubist houses look North African. The official tourism sources describe the houses but do not explain where the style came from. The explanation you will hear most often comes from APOS: the houses are not a legacy of Moorish rule, which ended centuries earlier, but of Olhão people emigrating to and trading with Morocco from the eighteenth century onwards. APOS also points out the differences: a Moroccan house has neither the high parapet nor the mirante. The connection lives on, too. Olhão has been twinned with Agadir since 1987, and there is a Praceta de Agadir in town.

The neighbourhoods and squares

• Barreta: to the west, made up of the Gaibéu and Manuel Lopes quarters. APOS considers it the oldest part of town, grown out of the original fishermen's huts near the lagoon and the markets.
• Bairro do Levante: to the east, with the same kind of houses and lanes.
• Praça da Restauração: the heart of it all. The order that listed the parish church explains that it was built on a broad open space that went on to become the village's main square. Its front faces the town rather than following the usual church orientation. The Chapel of Senhor dos Aflitos stands behind it.
• Avenida da República: the contrast. The national tourism board notes that the streets around it show the Olhão of the industrialists and ship owners who grew rich from fish canning, with balconies, tiles and wrought iron.

The church, chapel and Municipal Museum, with opening times, are covered in our one-day walking itinerary. Here we stick to the streets.

A walk through the old town: the Legends Trail

The Algarve tourism board suggests a route through five small squares, each with statues telling a local legend. It makes a good thread through Barreta:

1. Largo da Fábrica Velha: the legend of Marim.
2. Praça Joaquim Lopes: Floripes, the enchanted Moorish maiden.
3. Largo do Gaibéu, inside Barreta: the Enchanted Moor.
4. Largo do Carolas: the Boy with the Big Eyes.
5. Largo João da Carma: the legend of Arraúl, said to have created the Ria Formosa dunes and the islands of Armona and Culatra.

APOS suggests entering Barreta along Travessa do Gaibéu and following Rua do Pinheiro to Largo João da Carma. Keep a town map on your phone: the lanes twist and it is easy to walk in circles. Finish by heading up to Praça da Restauração and across into Bairro do Levante. At an easy pace, allow one to two hours.

For the view from above, ask at the parish church whether the tower is open to visitors that day. We could not find official opening times.

Good manners: people live here

The council points out that some residents have lived here for decades. Please keep that in mind:

• Keep your voice down, especially early in the morning, at lunchtime and at night.
• Do not peer through doors, hatches or open windows, and do not sit on front steps.
• Roof terraces are private. Only go up if you are invited.
• Ask before photographing people or the inside of a home.
• Leave the car outside the old town: the lanes are narrow and residents need to get through.
• Carry your rubbish to a bin.

To round off the day by the water, see the markets and things to do in Olhão.