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São Martinho do Porto

 

São Martinho do Porto on Portugal’s Silver Coast is famous for a rare natural feature: a near-enclosed bay that looks like a seashell when seen from above. The bay’s narrow mouth to the Atlantic acts like a natural breakwater, which helps keep the water noticeably calmer than many open-ocean beaches nearby. 

Long before it became a holiday destination, this sheltered inlet had strategic and economic value. Medieval records mention the village as early as 1257 in a charter associated with the Monastery of Alcobaça, and the bay functioned for centuries as Alcobaça’s seaport—supporting fishing and shipbuilding alongside coastal trade. 

In the 19th century the character of the place shifted. With local development (including pier works) the “beach quarter” grew into a second nucleus, and from the late 1800s São Martinho do Porto became a seaside resort popular with nobility and the bourgeoisie—an identity that still lingers in the promenade, villas, and classic summer-town atmosphere.