village

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.

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.

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.

Located on a 1,075-metre-high plateau on the north-east flank of the Estrela mountains in central Portugal, Guarda is a city of great historic interest and the highest place in the country.

A unique concentration of rock etchings and settlement sites in the Douro Valley region represents some of the world’s earliest evidence of recurrent human occupation.

Nestled midway along Madeira‘s more densely populated south coast, just 9 kilometres from the centre of Funchal, the quaint little fishing village of Câmara de Lobos is a popular stopover for travellers heading west from the capital towards Cabo Girão, one of … Read more

With its broad avenues, large squares and a pleasant air of prosperity, Castelo Branco is an attractive town of parks and gardens and a very good base from which to explore the border region of central Portugal.

Located 30km north of Abrantes, the small town of Vila de Rei (which means King’s Town) is a pretty place set in a wonderland of pinewoods, lakes, running streams and waterfalls right in the very heart of Portugal.

Largely unspoilt by the effects of modern development, Nordeste is a small outpost situated at the north-eastern tip of São Miguel island in the Azores, a nine-island archipelago located west of mainland Portugal in the North Atlantic.

Named after St Anne, mother of the Virgin Mary, Santana is a village of hedgerows and flowers on the north coast of Madeira Island.

Once a rich and powerful city, Silves today is a sleepy town lying in the foothills of the Serra de Monchique mountains in the western Algarve.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Bordering the south-western edge of the Iberian Peninsula, with around half of its periphery surrounded by water, Portugal’s shoreline has been a source of attraction as well as a gateway to the rest of the world for hundreds of years.

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.