Salinas de Porto Inglês

The pans spread flat and bright behind the pier at Porto Inglês, ridged with drying salt and stitched with wading birds. The colour shifts with water and weather, from mirror-white to warm rose, and among it all the salt women keep working.

Salt built Maio: for centuries ships, many of them British, loaded the island's white gold from these coastal pans, and the capital's old name, Porto Inglês, remembers the trade. Production continues in the hands of the women of the island's salt cooperative, and the salinas now sit inside Maio's UNESCO biosphere reserve as a wetland of international importance, feeding grounds for migratory birds with an observatory and walking trails along the pans. An interpretation centre beside the pier tells the story, from salt as currency to salt as seasoning. Go quietly, keep to the trails, and let the workers and the waders have the right of way.