Discovering Portugal
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.
Lisbon’s Ancient Art Museum
Portugal’s national gallery is the magnificent Ancient Art Museum where visitors to Lisbon can view an outstanding collection of paintings, sculptures and decorative arts spanning more than 700 years.
Lisbon’s Jerónimos Monastery
When visitors arrive in Lisbon‘s historic centre of Belém, the first building they see is the imposing Jerónimos Monastery, impressive for its sheer size and without doubt one of the most spectacular monuments in […]
Signposts in the Sky
Looking upwards on a clear night, it’s difficult not to wonder how the heavens guided Portugal’s great discoverers towards new horizons in the late Middle Ages. By means of ancient […]
The Highest of Portuguese Flyers
Charles Lindbergh might have received global recognition for his solo air crossing of the Atlantic in 1927, but it was two Portuguese pilots – Gago Coutinho and Sacadura Cabral (pictured […]
Poetry in Commotion
Portugal’s most celebrated poet, Luís Vaz de Camões (c. 1524-1580), lived an extraordinarily eventful life by any stretch of the imagination. As a young man he fought in Morocco and paid […]
Overland to Lisbon
For independent visitors travelling under their own steam, there are several routes to the Portuguese capital from the Spanish frontier and other outlying areas of the country, each offering a wide variety of […]
The Best of Belém
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 […]
The Power of Portuguese Literature
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.
Sintra’s Pena Palace
One of Portugal’s most striking architectural landmarks is the Romantic-style palace commissioned in the first half of the 19th century by D. Fernando of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha on the site of an […]