Founded in 1272, Vila Real (which means ‘royal town’) is a thriving agricultural centre ideally situated on an upland plateau ringed with mountains.

Nestling between the Minho in the north and the Beiras of central Portugal, the Douro region is one of the most scenic parts of the country and a magnet for visitors looking for a true taste of the country’s wine-rich … Read more

Covering more than 100 hectares of prime terrain, Buçaco Forest rises majestically out of the coastal plain north of Coimbra to form one of the most luxuriant areas of woodland in the whole of Portugal.

A few steps away from the city’s pedestrianised shopping areas, wide boulevards and urban parks, Faro’s original walls still stand proud, and within them lies a peaceful world of ancient stone buildings, many of which have been restored to their … Read more

The magnificent Convento de Cristo (Convent of Christ) in the historic town of Tomar in central Portugal is one of the most impressive religious complexes in the whole of southern Europe.

Spurred by Prince Henry the Navigator (1394-1460), the Portuguese discovered precisely what Columbus was seeking – the fabled Indies. They also charted new sea routes halfway around the world to destinations as far as Japan.

Named after the two mountain ranges it encompasses, Peneda-Gerês National Park (Parque Nacional da Peneda-Gerês) is an area of outstanding scenic beauty in the extreme north of Portugal.

One of Europe’s most iconic castles is undoubtedly the Castelo de Almourol, a fairy-tale fortress of Disney-like proportions perched in timeless splendour on top of a rocky island in the middle of the River Tagus in central Portugal.

With its deep valleys, stunning crater lakes, hot volcanic springs and lush green vistas, the Azores is an island destination like no other.

Reaching the summit of Pico mountain in the nine-island Atlantic archipelago of the Azores promises to be the high point (no pun intended) of any hiker’s visit to the region.

Once visited, never forgotten. It’s little wonder that the enchanting island of Madeira attracts more repeat visitors than any other part of the country.

Following in the footsteps of the great English Romantic poets, few tourists can resist the lush, green setting of Sintra just a few kilometres west of Lisbon.

Lisbon’s Parque das Nações (Park of Nations) combines innovative, ultra-modern architecture with centuries of seafaring tradition.

Southern Europe has many impressive caves to explore but some of the largest, deepest and most spectacular of them all are the cathedral-like Grutas de Mira de Aire located in the heart of central Portugal.

Purpose-built for traversing the oceans, the wide-hulled caravel (caravela in Portuguese) was arguably Portugal’s most significant contribution to maritime history and an integral part of Prince Henry the Navigator’s ambitious plan for extensive sea exploration in the 15th century.

Located in the heart of Belém, a bustling tourist centre in the western suburbs of Lisbon, the excellent Museu de Marinha (Maritime Museum) is a top attraction for anyone interested in learning all about Portugal’s many seafaring achievements over the … Read more

Visitors in search of the real Algarve need look no further than Alte, a pretty village tucked away in the hills north-west of Loulé.

The construction of Lisbon’s imposing cathedral began in the middle of the 12th century, during Afonso Henriques’ siege and capture of the city from the Moors.

The history of Portugal’s ground-breaking association with the seas spanned a hundred years from 1415-1515. Widely labelled as the Age of Discovery, this epoch-making period saw Portuguese navigators sail across uncharted seas to break out of the confines of Europe and … Read more

When the renowned English travel writer William Beckford visited Portugal (his favourite European country) in the late-18th century, he happened upon two of the shiniest jewels in the country’s tourism crown – the monasteries of Batalha and Alcobaça.

One of Portugal’s lesser-known but much-savoured wines is vinho verde, so called because the grapes are picked young and the wine is mostly drunk just a year or two after bottling.

The story of Pedro and Inês is an intriguing one; Portugal’s very own Romeo and Juliet. In essence, it’s a story of forbidden love.

The flurry of Portuguese maritime activity orchestrated by Prince Henry the Navigator in the 14th and 15th centuries culminated in the Holy Grail of seafaring achievements when an unknown sea captain bravely steered his wooden caravel around one of the … Read more

From Atlantic-fresh fish to the wild meats of the mountains, Portuguese food is distinctive and varied with many of the most popular regional dishes having evolved from age-old recipes based on locally-grown ingredients.

A maze of narrow, winding streets, Lisbon‘s Alfama quarter is the oldest and most historical part of the Portuguese capital, having survived the great earthquake and subsequent fires and tidal waves of 1755 almost intact.

Surrounded by green fields studded with almond trees, the photogenic town of Tavira is one of the most attractive places in the Eastern Algarve.

With its remote beauty and strong, independently-minded people, Trás-os-Montes (meaning ‘beyond the mountains’) is one of the most isolated and genuinely unspoilt parts of southern Europe.

Spectacularly located at the confluence of the Douro and Pinhão rivers, just 22 kilometres (14 miles) upstream from Peso da Régua, the pretty town of Pinhão lies at the very heart of northern Portugal‘s famous Port wine-making region.

It’s an endearing thought that the lyrics of one of the world’s most popular songs came to mind during a car journey between Lisbon and the Algarve.

Regularly spotted in Portugal, the red kite (milvus milvus) is one of the world’s most acrobatic birds of prey and a formidable sight with its reddish-brown body, angled wings and deeply forked tail.

Boating in the Alentejo on Alqueva Lake, Europe’s largest reservoir, is an immensely pleasurable experience, but it’s the eeriest of feelings cruising leisurely over the top of a once-vibrant village now completely submerged by water.

Blessed with a bucolic landscape of lush meadows and emerald-green pastures divided by walls of volcanic rock, Terceira was the third island of the Azores to be discovered (its name means ‘third’ in Portuguese) and coincidentally, is the third-largest in … Read more

Iberia’s third longest river, the majestic Rio Douro, gathers waters from over fifty major tributaries to form the peninsula’s largest river basin.

The undisputed queen of Portugal’s many first-rate cheeses is queijo da serra (serra cheese), made from the milk of ewes leisurely grazing in elevated pastures full of wild vegetation throughout the Estrela mountain region of central Portugal.

Portugal is a land that has a very generous supply of different types of spring and mineral water – from north to south and east to west – each blessed with its own unique characteristics.

One of the most inventive characters of the 18th century must surely have been Bartolomeu Lourenço de Gusmão, the Brazilian-born genius who created the earliest known flying machine he christened the Passarola, a fire-powered aircraft which he showcased to Portugal‘s king … Read more

Surrounded by one of the oldest state forests in the world, the lovely old city of Leiria was once the southernmost outpost of the early Portuguese kingdom at a time when Lisbon was still under Moorish occupation.

Much in vogue and the destination of choice for many, Lisbon (capital of Portugal) is several cities in one, each of a distinctive style and character.

Besides being a strong, independently-minded woman back in the middle of the seventeenth century, Josefa de Óbidos (1630-84) over almost four decades created some of the most attractive and instantly recognisable paintings in the history of Portuguese art.

Located close to the Spanish border in the centre of Portugal, Monsanto is generally considered to be the most typical and picturesque of all Portugal’s prized villages.

Portuguese painting first came to prominence in the 15th century. In 1428, when Jan van Eyck visited Portugal for the marriage of King João I’s daughter Isabella to Philip the Good, the Duke of Burgundy, it marked the beginning of a long and close … Read more

Perched high on a line of hills near the Serra da Estrela mountains of central Portugal, Belmonte is a medieval village of considerable charm commanded by an imposing 13th-century granite castle.

Located deep in the heart of Trás-os-Montes, between the city of Bragança and the Spanish frontier in northern Portugal, the Parque Natural de Montesinho remains one of southern Europe’s best-kept secrets.



A man of rare taste and exceptional vision, good King Manuel I of Portugal ruled over the Portuguese Empire during the halcyon days of his country’s great Age of Discovery.

Hugging the River Minho in the extreme north of Portugal, Monção is a charming little border town centred around two handsome squares in the heart of the lush, green Minho province.

Sweeping across much of the northern and central parts of Madeira island in the Atlantic, the world’s largest remaining expanse of primeval laurel forest not only dates back to the dinosaurs but has somehow survived almost six hundred years of … Read more

Long and narrow, the verdant island of São Jorge is a place of immense scenic splendour and outstanding natural beauty right in the middle of the Azores archipelago.

Fringed by salt-flats and paddy-fields, Alcácer do Sal is an old port town on the Sado River about 90 kilometres south-east of Lisbon.

Located 120 kilometres (about an hour’s drive) due north of Lisbon, the church and adjacent monastery of Alcobaça are the earliest examples of truly Gothic architecture in Portugal.

Despite its steep hills, Porto is certainly a city made for walking with a number of interesting routes available for visitors looking to soak up the city’s medieval atmosphere at their own pace.

Roughly rectangular in shape, Santa Maria Island is both the most easterly and southerly of the remote Azores archipelago, and the first of nine to have been discovered by Portuguese navigators in the 15th century.

It’s extremely rare to catch sight of a large pod of bottlenose dolphins in European waters, but happily a family of three dozen or so are a regular attraction in the Sado Estuary south of Lisbon.

The age-old custom of hurtling visitors downhill at breakneck speed in something resembling an over-sized laundry basket is thankfully very much alive on the Atlantic island of Madeira.

In 1572, Luís Vaz de Camões published his long-awaited poem, Os Lusíadas (The Lusiads), based on the hardships and adventures experienced by the great explorer, Vasco da Gama.

Located high in the Madeira hills at an altitude of 700 metres (2,296 feet), Camacha is a pretty little place situated just a few kilometres north-east of the island’s capital, Funchal.

Perhaps the most striking of all the marble towns in the Alentejo region, Vila Viçosa might be small in stature but it’s an immense place in the overall context of Portugal’s long and chequered history.

It’s a little-known fact that, during their two terms in office, the Obama family had two of the best pets known to man living with them at the White House – Bo and Sunny – both Portuguese water dogs.

After the region’s gateway city of Faro, Portimão is the most important commercial centre in the Algarve and the main hub for the region’s thriving sardine-canning, leisure cruising and big-game fishing industries.

Nestling in a vast mountain bowl a thousand metres deep, the small whitewashed village of Curral das Freiras is one of Europe’s hidden gems and the most majestic place on the Atlantic island of Madeira.

One of Portugal’s most precious creatures is the remarkable Mediterranean chameleon (Chamaeleo chamaeleon) which inhabits the coastal areas of the country’s sun-drenched southern shoreline.

Full of customs and tradition, the delightful UNESCO World Heritage city of Angra do Heroísmo has played a strategic role as a mid-Atlantic port over the centuries.

Located within the protected Arrábida Natural Park, Cabo Espichel is a lonely, brooding promontory where land comes to an abrupt end on the south-western tip of the Setúbal Peninsula some 50 kilometres south of Lisbon.

Lying just 3 km to the west of the Algarve’s sprawling frontier town, Vila Real de Santo António, the once sleepy fishing village of Monte Gordo is the last in a long line of popular beach resorts gracing Portugal’s southern … Read more

A lively and cosmopolitan seaside resort at the mouth of the Mondego River in central Portugal, Figueira da Foz’s glorious centrepiece is its wide and very extensive sandy beach.

Over the centuries, Chaves (a vibrant town in northern Portugal) has been fought over by the Romans, the French during the Peninsular War and repeated Spanish invaders.

Closely associated with the beginning of the Portuguese monarchy, the national Gothic style is elegant and ethereal with strains of the Romanesque sobriety and austere grace seen in some of its earliest examples.

In 1830, when Gaspar Henriques de Paiva left his home in Monsanto, central Portugal, for the village of Azeitão in the Arrábida mountains close to Lisbon, he took with him the winning formula for one of Portugal’s best cheeses.

Set in a prime location overlooking the city centre, Porto’s Sé Cathedral is a magnificent Romanesque building dating right back to the 12th century.

This grey roofless edifice is all that remains of the once magnificent Gothic-style Carmo Church, which ponders silently from its privileged vantage point overlooking Rossio Square and the rest of Lisbon‘s downtown Baixa district.

Located in the extreme south of the Douro region, just off the main road connecting Guarda with Lamego, Sernancelhe is a delightfully picturesque little town originally founded on the banks of the River Távora in the 10th century.