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.
With as many as 260 million speakers around the world, the majority of whom are native speakers, Portuguese is by far the most widely spoken Romance language after Spanish.
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.
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.
Loosely translated as ‘lookout points’, the miradouros of Lisbon offer visitors the chance to absorb the city’s urban kaleidoscope from a series of privileged positions.