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
Crying out to be traversed and fully explored, the Minho region in the north-western corner of Portugal is the oldest and arguably the most characteristic part of the country.
The year 1942 was a very turbulent one but it did spawn one of the world’s most iconic and popular table wines.
When William Shakespeare mentioned Madeira wine in his late-16th century play ‘Henry IV, Part 1’, it seems he was already very well aware of its intoxicating virtues.
Latin but not Mediterranean, cosmopolitan but not over-crowded, Portugal is a country where a fair portion of the population still lives as people have always lived – in peaceful places far away from the hustle and bustle of modern life.
Famous for its port wine lodges, the ancient town of Vila Nova de Gaia lies directly opposite the great city of Porto on the steep south bank of the River Douro in northern Portugal.
Rich from centuries of trade, the ancient city of Porto is as much a cosmopolitan centre as it is a place steeped in the historical events of the past.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Iberia’s third longest river, the majestic Rio Douro, gathers waters from over fifty major tributaries to form the peninsula’s largest river basin.
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.
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.
Nestling among vineyards and olive and cork trees, Azeitão is a pretty little town situated on the old road between Lisbon and the port city of Setúbal at the foot of the Arrábida mountains just 40 km south of the Portuguese capital.
Without doubt one of Europe’s most astonishing cityscapes, Porto’s old quarter, with its thick flagstones and delicately-moulded façades, is attracting a fast-growing number of culture-hungry tourists.
Visitors to the picturesque Douro Valley region in the north of Portugal can enjoy a very large dose of nostalgia on one of the great railways journeys of the world along the Douro line.
The tranquil River Douro in the north of Portugal is the perfect setting for a leisurely cruise, as you can see from this photograph taken from the banks of the sleepy town of Pinhão.
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
Set on a glittering bay against a background of soaring green mountains and nestling picturesquely into the shelter of the verdant hillside, the enchanting city of Funchal attracted Madeira’s earliest settlers in the 15th century.
It seems that Portugal’s much-celebrated port wine was invented by chance. A shortage of French claret at the end of the 17th-century had wealthy wine connoisseurs searching for suitable alternatives.