EFE
A few weeks after filming the latest installment of the famous spy been initiated as 50 years Fleming’s death met, many fans of the series of 007 dived sources inspiration of the writer, which played a crucial role around Lisbon, especially the town of Estoril.
Services Officer British Naval Intelligence, the author arrived in Portugal in May 1941 the Entourage hand Sir John Godfrey.
Hosted in the elegant Hotel Palácio Estoril in Portugal counterpart spa located 25 kilometers from Lisbon, Fleming James Bond devised within the “nest of spies” in which the Estoril manor had become.
Francisco Corrêa de Barros, manager of this five-star hotel built in the 30s, confirmed to Reuters that the property was the “chosen by the allies” as their headquarters while the Hotel Park, “was the Axis forces.”
Portugal’s neutrality during the war and the proximity of the Atlantic Ocean, Estoril was a strategic location for both spy networks sides and a benchmark to reach the Americas.
Corrêa de Barros, privileged knowledgeable about the history of the hotel and the town, found the tension that lived in those places and gave clues about the day Fleming day.
He lived with spies, often in bars bars, with whom he shared -a martinis cocktail flag would later James Bond and knew morse code used to send . confidential information
The name that was more marked Fleming certainly Dusko Popov, famous double Yugoslav spy working for both the British secret service MI6 to Nazi Abwehr intelligence.
The reputation of Popov, considered “bon vivant” and “playboy” Fleming mark to the point that his James Bond Yugoslav adopt several strokes.
Popov, customer Hotel Palácio on several occasions, was “very professional, very good looking and very popular among women,” he told the head of the hotel.
Al spy will come to label in the parlance of the secret services with the code “tricycle”, a name which, according to Corrêa de Barros, corresponded to that was often accompanied by three beautiful women.
Among the episodes that Fleming witnessed in Portugal, inspired him especially for his literary James Bond’s famous wager Popov.
In the Casino Estoril, British author saw Popov bet $ 40,000 (equivalent to $ 600,000 today) in a baccarat table, only to to mislead an enemy.
This episode was used as the basis of the first book on James Bond, “Casino Royale” (1953), where 007 the villain Le Chiffre is measured on a baccarat table (version of a card game).
The Estoril Casino and 007 met again in 1969 when the area was chosen as one of the premises of shooting of the film “007 the service of his Majesty “(” On Her Majesty’s Secret Service “).
In this film, the sixth in the series, James Bond -encarnado by Australian George Lazenby- and returns to the place where it was conceived, the Palácio Hotel .
According to Francisco Correa de Barros, the Estoril manor is already one of the places of pilgrimage for fans of spy, immortalized in the collective memory for its luxury cars, their attractive companions and suggestive martinis, all they associated Popov stay in Portugal.
Miguel Conceição
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