The Grand Café in Faro

 

"The town was full of strangers and constant movement: planes overhead, roaring in and out of the airport across the shore; boats puttering in and out of the harbour; trains sliding between the road and the sea; buses and cars; pedestrians bobbing up and down over the undulating cobblestones.

The café, at least, was still. On the way to the language school, it had the presence and quiet grace of an ancient oak, rooted to its spot in the Rua Dr. Francisco Gomes. The columns and balustrades of its once-grand fin de siècle façade had an air of forgotten romance that was hard to resist. I pushed against its old-style revolving door that first morning simply because I was curious to see inside."

 

                                                                    from 300 Days of Sun

 

The Café Alianca in Faro was once one of the town's great meeting places, a cosmopolitan establishment where the great and the good would drop by to see who else was there. When I visited in August 2013, it had been closed for several years but had re-opened temporarily to host meetings and discussions during the local elections. The café plays a crucial role in 300 Days of Sun, both in the present and the past stories.