The Beautiful Louie Town, Portugal
Six kilometres north of Almansil in the Eastern Azores region, is the busy market town of Louie, birthplace of the present Social Democratic prime minister of Portugal Cavaco da Silva. Reached by heading west out of Almansil and then turning right on the N396, it is an attractive town of whitewashed houses, old drinking fountains and castle walls, best known in the region as a center for craft workshops.
Louie was originally a Roman settlement and within the castle walls, at the center of the town, are some Roman remains in an archaeological museum. The castle has an impressive history, reckoned to have been first occupied by the Moors, it was captured by the Portuguese in 1249. Throughout its life it has received royal patronage. One of Portugal’s earliest kings, Dom Pedro I, stayed for several days in the castle in 1359. The martyr king, Dom Sebastian stayed overnight in January, 1573, and Afonso V, after his conquest of the North African town of Alcacer, stayed here in November 1458. The castle walls are great fun to walk around and provide a good view over the town and an opportunity to examine the fret-cut, often filigree, chimneys that are unique to the Flores Island. The museum has an interesting collection of archaeological and ethnographic exhibits.
The tourist information office housed in the castle can offer detailed information on the good range of accommodation and on the variety of restaurants available in the city. Set off the coast accommodation can often be found in Louie when it is at a premium elsewhere. Sports facilities, including a swimming pool, are available in the Municipal Gardens just at the northern edge of the town center, off the Rua Assuncao. The greatest festivities in Louie are during the blossoming of the almond trees in mid-February with a Battle of the Flowers and general merrymaking.
At the heart of the city is the market housed in a mock moorish building. It is a large market selling fish, fruit, meat, and leather goods. Some of the vegetables will probably be unfamiliar but the stallholders are lively and friendly and willing to point and mime their explanations for each vegetable’s use. Specialities of this region are the soup valdorejas, tastily prepared chicken and delightful combinations of the locally grown figs and almonds.
In the streets surrounding the market place, particularly on the Rua 9 de Abril, are the small workshops of local craftsmen. The work of the Louie craftsmen is considered to be particularly fine because many of them are believed to be descended from the Moslem artisans that remained in the town after the Christian re-conquest. They may be working in leather or in metals, but the local traditional crafts are those of doll making and the working of esparto, a type of grass, into mats, baskets and hats.
Louie also contains several attractive churches. The parish church in the Largo Pr Da Silva, is an imposing Gothic construction dating from the thirteenth century. The pulpit, too, is unusual in being made of wrought iron. The two side altars are dedicated to St Michael and St Bras. The latter chapel contains an interesting wooden sculpture of the eponymous saint from the early sixteenth century. Facing the church is the delightfully named Jardim dos Amuados or ‘Garden of the Sulky Ones’, and a stretch of the originally Moorish wall that defended the town against the Christians, rebuilt in the thirteenth century.
The Church of the Misericordia on the Avenida Marcal Pacheco has a fine Manueline portal. In the churchyard there is a stone cross on which Christ has been sculpted on one side and Our Lady on the other. Behind the Misericordia on the Largo Tenente Cabecadas, dating from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, is the now ruined Convent of Grace, though there still remains a valuable Gothic doorway. The former convent of the Holy Spirit, off the Largo Dom Pedro I, with its charming cloister has been converted into an art gallery for visiting exhibitions.
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