Easter is a much-celebrated occasion all over Portugal but Braga, the country’s ecclesiastical capital, transforms itself into a place of pure pilgrimage and intense religious fervour during the popular Holy Week (Semana Santa) festivities.
Roughly rectangular in shape and with a population of around ten million people, Portugal has much to offer the modern visitor – young and old alike. It’s a land of fine wine, fairy-tale castles and palaces and long sandy beaches … Read more
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With its tilting terrain and subtropical climate, Madeira’s flower power ranges from orchids tottering on three-foot-long stems and bougainvillea in bursting shades of red and purple.
Enveloped in a Moorish wall, the diminutive whitewashed village of Óbidos was deemed so enchanting that it was gifted to a queen, not once but many times throughout the centuries.
Approached through attractive wooded hills in the lush, green Minho region of northern Portugal, Citânia de Briteiros is one of the most impressive archaeological sites in Portugal and by far the largest and most thrilling fortified Celto-Iberian settlement in the … Read more
Perched high above the River Guadiana close to the frontier with Spain, the tiny medieval walled village of Monsaraz to the east of Évora is one of the most atmospheric places in the entire Alentejo region.
Set on a great granite escarpment with sweeping views across the vast plains of the Alentejo region, the walled village of Marvão is one of the prettiest places in the whole of southern Europe.
With its picturesque beaches and quaint fishing boat-bobbing waters, Cascais is far removed from the hustle and bustle of nearby Lisbon.
Portugal’s highly-regarded and much-savoured Pastel de Belém celebrates its 188th birthday this year, but its ingredients remain a closely guarded secret.
Compact and cosmopolitan, Lisbon is a walker’s dream come true with much to see in just a couple of hours and plenty of refined refreshment breaks along the way.
The great earthquake of 1755 wasn’t exclusive to Lisbon; in fact, the epicentre was calculated to have been out in the Atlantic some 200 kilometres (125 miles) south-west of the Algarve.
The Portuguese have a very strong attachment to their beliefs, customs and capabilities, which thankfully means that Portugal’s traditional art of handicrafts hasn’t been discarded as a result of the country’s rapid modernisation since the 1974 revolution.
The Phoenicians first brought olive trees across the Mediterranean to Portugal and the Romans were successful in cultivating the groves and pressing the olives to attain the precious oil.
One of the more unusual features in the streets around Rossio, Lisbon’s bustling central square, are the small bars with their dated interiors selling ginjinha, the local name for morello cherry brandy.
It is widely claimed that Portugal is the land of the azulejo painted tile and in no other country and by no other people has it been used on such a vast scale or in such an original way.
One of the most memorable times to be visiting Portugal is late winter/early spring when the country explodes into a frenzy of song and dance as the annual carnival season gets underway.
Taking a stroll down Lisbon‘s memory lane, through the historic square mile of Belém, the place from which Portugal‘s fearless adventurers set sail for unknown lands in the 15th and 16th centuries, is one of the highlights of any person’s visit to the capital.
One of the most legendary and influential figures of Portugal’s long and chequered history is Afonso Henriques, the country’s first king.
The story of Évora dates back more than twenty centuries to Celtic times. This fascinating museum-city reached its golden age in medieval times when it became the residence of Portuguese kings.
As its name implies, the lovely town of Caldas da Rainha (Queen’s Spa) an hour’s drive north of Lisbon in central Portugal preserves the eternal and loving memory of one of the country’s most popular queens – Leonor – whose … Read more
Along with its glorious stretch of golden coastline, Lisbon was a hive of spying activity during World War II, with many secret agents from both sides operating under the cover of their diplomatic status.
Sitting comfortably between the Lima Estuary and the rolling hills of Portugal‘s enchanting Minho region, Viana do Castelo boasts an extended history with vestiges of human habitation dating back as far as the Stone Age.
Portuguese writing officially began in the 12th century when Henri de Bourgogne, father of Afonso Henriques, Portugal’s first king, brought with his court several French scholars and literary gentlemen.
The green and pleasant north of Portugal is a place of traditional merry-making where annual festivals are ablaze with colourful costumes, lively processions and frenetic folk-dancing followed by a feast of fireworks.
Concentrating on a person’s health rather than how they look, Portugal‘s wide-ranging thermal spa experience is far more therapeutic than many other destinations, with the majority built around mineral-rich springs set in strikingly picturesque locations.
Rising like a pyramid above vast plains of surrounding wheat fields, Beja stands proud as the capital of the Lower (Baixo) Alentejo region.
The longest of all Portugal’s rivers, the Tagus (Tejo in Portuguese) meanders across the Iberian Peninsula for just over 1,000 kilometres before spilling out into the Atlantic Ocean in Lisbon, right at the point where Portuguese caravels set sail on … Read more
History has shaped the Portuguese capital with a succession of architectural influences over the centuries, most notably the Moors who occupied the city for more than four hundred years.
Faro, the sunshine capital of the Algarve, has metamorphosed into a major tourism hub in recent years, and not just in the high season.
Founded in 1272, Vila Real (which means ‘royal town’) is a thriving agricultural centre ideally situated on an upland plateau ringed with mountains.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
Iberia’s third longest river, the majestic Rio Douro, gathers waters from over fifty major tributaries to form the peninsula’s largest river basin.
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.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
Synonymous with the city’s long and chequered history, Lisbon’s imposing Castle of São Jorge stands proud on the highest hill of the Tagus estuary and was once the nucleus of the Portuguese capital. Evidence suggests that an Iron Age castro, or … Read more
Situated in a large and beautiful valley on the banks of the River Nabão in central Portugal, Tomar is very closely linked to the Knights Templar and one of the most important chapters of Portugal’s history.
An old ritual of pre-Roman origin, and with its roots firmly set in an ancient fertility festival dedicated to the goddess Ceres, the Festa dos Tabuleiros is one of the most colourful and traditional events in Portugal‘s cultural calendar.
Situated 56 km east of Porto, the pretty town of Amarante is set immaculately along the banks of the River Tâmega.
One of the most joyful expressions of love and happiness can be witnessed in the faces of the Noivas de Santo António (Brides of St Anthony) who take their wedding vows in the hallowed setting of Lisbon’s magnificent Sé Cathedral each … Read more
Surrounded by vineyards, orchards and pine-forests, the charming city of Viseu has been a major crossroads since the time of the Romans who chose its site for a military camp, one of the largest in the Iberian Peninsula.