Portimão Museum opened to the public in 2008. Housed in the former S. Francisco fish canning factory (Feu & Hermanos, Lda), its benchmark exhibition, "Portimão, Territory and Identity", tells the story of Portimão from the time the area was first settled by humans some 5,000 years ago. The exhibition highlights the various peoples who spent time here, as well as the main industries (canning, smoking, shipbuilding and fishing) that marked the municipality's development prior to the tourism boom. The well-known local personality, Manuel Teixeira Gomes, is also featured.
Having won national and international awards, Portimão Museum is included in the European Route of Industrial Heritage.
Apart from its permanent exhibition, the museum also offers guided tours around the outside of the building. These let visitors learn about all the different aspects of the canning company and the building, as well as the adjacent former facilities such as the shipyard and the workshops where the empty cans were made. Back inside the former factory, an explanation is given about the museum's current spaces and what they used to be: canteen, crèche, general storage, canning room, offices and more.
The city's industrial legacy can also be explored by taking a guided tour to the first social housing estates that were built in the area around the museum building in the 1930s and 1950s.
To book a guided tour, please contact:
E-mail: museu@cm-portimao.pt | Tel. +351 282 405 230
For more information:
www.visitalgarve.pt/pt/462/museu-de-portimao.aspx
www.museudeportimao.pt