Secret society

Once a quiet fishing village west of Lisbon, Cascais became an unlikely hive of activity during the Second World War, attracting regal refugees and intelligence operatives in equal measure. Russell Higham investigates its enduring glamour-and its connection to Casino Royale

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AT the end of Casablanca, Rick, played by Humphrey Bogart, bids a sad, but stoic farewell to Ingrid Bergman's Ilsa before she and her husband, the Czech resistance leader Victor Laszlo, board a plane bound for Lisbon.

During the Second World War, Portugalespecially the Atlantic-facing coastline just above its capital-provided an officially neutral and logistically expedient safe haven (its promontory, Cabo da Roca, being the westernmost point in Continental Europe) for refugees fleeing the Nazis. For the fictional Laszlos, as well as real-life émigrés, including artists Salvador Dalí, Max Ernst and Marc Chagall, plus self-confessed 'art addict' Peggy Guggenheim and members of the Rothschild family, it was a place to await transit papers for onward passage to the even greater security of the US. Some chose, or were forced, to stay longer.

Imperilled European royalty from countries aligned, sympathetic or susceptible to the advancing Axis powers also took refuge in places such as Cascais and especially in neighbouring Estoril. There were worse places in which to be exiled: the sunkissed shores of the Portuguese Riviera were infinitely preferable to the treacherously shifting geopolitical sands back home. Many remained or joined after the war ended. The Counts of Barcelona and Humberto II of Italy settled in 1946, followed by Carol II of Romania in 1947.