• Central Portugal
• Douro
• Lisbon
• Northern Portugal
• Southern Portugal
CENTRAL PORTUGAL
The Estremadura region has played a crucial role in each phase of
the nation's history - and the monuments are there to prove it. A
comparatively small area, it boasts a quite extraordinary concentration
of vivid architecture and engaging towns. Alcobaça , Batalha , Óbidos
and Tomar - home to the most exciting buildings in Portugal - all lie
within ninety minutes' bus ride of one another, as does the pilgrimage
centre of Fátima . With its fertile rolling hills, Estremadura is second
in beauty only to Minho, but the adjoining bull-breeding lands of
Ribatejo (literally "banks-of-the-Tejo") fade into the dull expanses of
northwestern Alentejo, and there's no great reason to cross the river
unless you're pushing on to Évora or can catch up with one of the
region's traditional festivals.
North of Estremadura, life on the fertile plain of the Beira Litoral has
been conditioned over the centuries by the twin threats of floodwaters
from Portugal's highest mountains and silting by the restless Atlantic.
The highlight here is Coimbra , an ancient university town stacked high
on the right bank of the Mondego. To the north is the little-explored
Mountain Beiras region, historically the heart of ancient Lusitânia,
where Viriatus the Iberian rebel made his last stand against the Romans.
You'll see many signs of this patriotism in the fine old town of Viseu ,
where every other place of refreshment is the Café Viriate or the
Restaurante Lusitânia . At an even higher altitude stands Guarda ,
pretty diminutive for somewhere of such renown, but nonetheless
bristling with life, especially on market days.
DOURO
The valleys of the Douro and its tributaries are among the most
spectacular landscapes in Portugal, and the Douro Valley itself, a
narrow, winding gorge for the majority of its long route east to the
Spanish border, is the most beautiful of all. The Douro rail route ,
which joins the river about 60km inland and then sticks to it across the
country, is one of those journeys that needs no justification other than
the trip itself. At present there are quite regular connections along
the line as far as Peso da Régua, though you will most likely find
yourself on a single carriage train; beyond Régua, there are less
frequent connections to Tua and Pocinho.
Cete, half a dozen stations out of Oporto, is just a mile away from the
village of PAÇO DE SOUSA , a former headquarters of the Benedictines in
Portugal and a popular picnic spot for Oporto locals. If you're looking
for a bed, it's not much further down the line to Penafiel station,
connected by bus to the village itself. Split by main-road traffic,
PENAFIEL is not that enticing a place, but it has a saving grace in its
fabulous local vinho verde wine, served from massive barrels in the
adega in the central Largo do Padré Américo. Fado's restaurant still has
barrels but is quite smart - the owner will sing fado at weekends if
you're lucky; above is the best and cheapest hotel , Casa João da Lixa (tel
255 215 158; £5-10/$8-16/¬9-18).
At Livração, about an hour from Oporto, the Tâmega line cuts off for
Amarante in the mountains. Shortly after, the main line finally reaches
the Douro and heads upstream until, at Mesão Frio, the valley broadens
into the little plain commanded by PESO DA RÉGUA , the depot through
which port wine must pass on its way from Pinhão - the centre of
production - to Oporto. The tiny tourist office (summer daily
9am-12.30pm & 2-5.30pm; winter Mon-Fri only; tel 254 313 846), 1km from
the train station, can inform you about visits to local cellars. Apart
from these alcoholic diversions, there's not much to do except wander
through the upper village and along the river. If you need to stay, the
high-rise Pensão Império at Rua José Vasques Osório 8 (tel 254 320 120;
£15-20/$24-32/¬27-36) offers good accommodation , breakfast and views,
and Pensão Borrajo on Rua Dos Camilos near the post office, is basic but
cheap (tel 254 233 396; £10-15/$16-24/¬18-27). There are plenty of
restaurants along the main street.
Beyond Peso da Régua begin the terraced slopes where the port vines are
grown: they look their best in August, with the grapes ripening, and in
September when the harvest has begun. The country continues in this vein,
craggy and beautiful, with the softer hills of the interior fading dark
green into the distance, to Tua (junction for the Tua line) and Pocinho,
where buses take over for routes east towards Miranda do Douro. From
there it's a straightforward hitch in summer to Zamora in Spain.
LISBON
These are few more immediately likeable capitals than LISBON
(Lisboa). A lively and varied place, it remains in some ways curiously
provincial, rooted as much in the 1920s as the 2000s. Pre-World War I
wooden trams clank up outrageous gradients, past mosaic pavements and
Art Nouveau cafés, and the medieval, village-like quarter of Alfama
which hangs below the city's São Jorge castle. Modern Lisbon, with a
population of just over 3 million, has kept an easy-going, human pace
and scale, with little of the underlying violence of most cities and
ports of its size. It also boasts a vibrant, cosmopolitan identity, with
large communities of ex-colony Brazilians, Africans (from Angola,
Mozambique and Cape Verde) and Asians (from Macao, Goa and East Timor).
Many came over to work on two major urban development projects in the
Nineties: the preparations for the European City of Culture in 1994 and
the Expo 98 . Lisbon invested heavily in these ventures and the
rejuvenation of the city with new road, hotel, metro and bridge schemes.
Disused dockland has been reclaimed and communication links improved
with several showcase pieces of architecture and engineering like
Santiago Calatrava's impressive Gare de Oriente and his sleek fourteen
kilometre-long Vasco de Gama bridge which links Lisbon airport to a
network of national motorways. The focus is still firmly on the future
with Portugal's successful bid to stage the European Football
Championship in 2004, an event which will again turn the world's
attention on the Portuguese capital.
The Great Earthquake of 1755 (followed by a tidal wave and fire)
destroyed most of the city's big buildings and twenty years of frantic
reconstruction led to many impressive new palaces and churches and the
street grid pattern spanning the seven hills of Lisbon. Several
buildings from Portugal's golden age survived the quake - notably the
Torre de Belém , the Castelo de São Jorge and the Monastery of Jerónimos
at Belém. Many of the city's more modern sites also demand attention:
the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian , a museum and cultural complex with
superb collections of ancient and modern art and the futuristic
Oceanarium at the Parque das Nações, the largest of its kind in Europe.
Half an hour south of Lisbon dunes stretch along the Costa da Caparica
and twenty kilometres north you'll pass the coastal resorts of Estoril
and Cascais before reaching the lush wooded heights and royal palaces of
Sintra and the monastery of Mafra , one of the most extraordinary
buildings in the country.
The City
The lower town - the Baixa - is very much the heart of the capital,
housing many of the country's administrative departments, banks and
business offices. Europe's first great example of Neoclassical design
and urban planning, it remains an imposing quarter of rod-straight
streets, cobbled underfoot and either streaming with traffic or turned
over to pedestrians, street performers and pavement artists. Many of the
streets in the Baixa grid maintain their crafts and businesses as
devised by the autocratic Marquês de Pombal in his post-earthquake
reconstruction: Rua da Prata (Silversmiths' Street), Rua dos Sapateiros
(Cobblers' Street) and Rua do Ouro (Goldsmiths' Street) are all cases in
point. Architecturally, the most interesting places in the Baixa are the
squares - the Rossío and Praça do Comércio - and, on the periphery, the
lanes leading east to the cathedral and west up towards Bairro Alto.
This last area, known as Chiado , suffered much damage from a fire that
swept across the Baixa in August 1988 but has been elegantly rebuilt by
Portugal's premier architect Àlvaro Siza and remain the city's most
affluent quarter, focused on the fashionable shops and the beautiful old
tearooms of the Rua Garrett .
The Rossío is very much a focus for the city with its tree-lined avenues
and new pedestrian areas as well as a handy Metro station, yet its main
concession to grandeur is the Teatro Nacional , built along the north
side in the 1840s. At the waterfront end of the Baixa, the Praça do
Comércio was intended as the climax to Pombal's design; it's now
pedestrianized and buzzing with some of Lisbon's best restaurants and
cafés.
A couple of blocks east of the Praça do Comércio is the church of
Conceição Velha , severely damaged by the earthquake but retaining its
flamboyant Manueline doorway, an early example of this style which hints
at the brilliance that emerged at Belém. The Sé Cathedral (Mon-Sat
9am-7pm) stands very stolidly above. Founded in 1150 to commemorate the
city's reconquest from the Moors, it in fact occupies the site of the
principal mosque of Moorish Lishbuna. Like so many of the country's
cathedrals, it is Romanesque and extraordinarily restrained in both size
and decoration. For admission to the thirteenth-century cloisters (Mon-Sat
10am-5pm) you must get a ticket (¬0.50), as you must for the Baroque
sacristy (¬2.50) with its small museum of treasures - including the
relics of St Vincent, allegedly brought to Lisbon in 1173 in a boat
piloted by ravens.
From the Sé, Rua Augusto Rosa winds upward towards the Castelo, past
sparse ruins of a Roman theatre and the Miradouro de Santa Luzia , where
the conquest of Lisbon and the siege of the Castelo de São Jorge by the
Crusaders in 1147 are depicted on the walls. At the entrance to the
Castelo São Jorge (daily 9am-9pm; free) stands a triumphant statue of
Afonso Henriques, conqueror of the Moors. Of the Moorish palace that
once stood here only a much-restored shell remains - but the castle as a
whole is an enjoyable place to spend a couple of hours, wandering amid
the ramparts and towers and looking down upon the city. Crammed within
the castle's outer walls is the tiny medieval quarter of Santa Cruz ,
once very much a village in itself though now littered with gift shops
and restaurants.
The Alfama quarter, stumbling from the walls of the Castelo to the banks
of the Tejo, is the oldest part of Lisbon. In Arab times this was the
grandest part of the city, but with subsequent earthquakes the new
Christian nobility moved out, leaving it to the fishing community still
here today. It is undergoing some commercialisation, thanks to its
cobbled lanes and "character", but although the antique shops and
restaurants may be moving in, the quarter retains a largely traditional
life of its own. The Feira da Ladra , Lisbon's rambling flea market ,
fills the Campo de Santa Clara, at the edge of Alfama, every Tuesday and
Saturday. While at the flea market, take a look inside Santa Engrácia ,
the loftiest and most tortuously built church in the city - begun in
1682, its vast dome was finally completed in 1966. Through the tiled
cloisters of nearby São Vicente de Fora you can visit the old monastic
refectory, since 1855 the pantheon of the Bragança dynasty. Here, in
more or less complete (though unexciting) sequence, are the bodies of
all Portuguese kings from João IV, who restored the monarchy in 1640, to
Manuel II, who lost it and died in exile in England in 1932.
Mésnier's extraordinary funicular, Elevador Santa Justa just off the top
end of Rua do Ouro on Rua de Santa Justa, is the most obvious approach
to Bairro Alto . Alternatively, there are the two funicular-like trams -
the Elevador da Glória from the Praça dos Restauradores (just up from
the tourist office) or the Elevador da Bica from Rua de São Paulo/Rua da
Moeda (both ¬0.80 one-way). The ruined Gothic arches of the Convento do
Carmo hang almost directly above the exit of Mésnier's funicular. Once
the largest church in the city, this was half-destroyed by the
earthquake and is perhaps even more beautiful as a result; sadly it and
the small archeological museum are both closed for restoration.
NORTHERN PORTUGAL
The economic powerhouse of the north is Oporto , the country's
second largest city and most industrious centre. It's an enticingly
lively place, made especially attractive by the port-producing suburb of
Vila Nova de Gaia , whose wines are supplied by the vineyards of the
River Douro. The Douro Valley , a spectacular rocky gorge as it
approaches the sea, is followed by a magnificent rail route whose branch
lines run along some equally lovely valleys - along the River Tâmega to
Amarante, along the Corgo to Vila Real, and along to Tua, from where
there are bus connections to Bragança , capital of the isolated region
of Trás-os-Montes . The Portuguese consider the northwest province of
the Minho to be the most beautiful part of their country, and with its
river valleys, wooded hills, trailing vines and wild coastline, the
attractions are obvious. A small, thoroughly rural and conservative
region, its towns are often outrageously picturesque and full of quiet
charm. Monuments and museums are concentrated in Braga and Guimarães ,
while between them lie the extensive Celtic ruins of the Citânia de
Briteiros , the most impressive archeological site in Portugal. Viana do
Castelo , the main town of the Minho coast, is an enjoyably low-key
resort with a wonderful beach.
SOUTHERN PORTUGAL
The huge, sparsely populated plains of the Alentejo , to the
southeast of Lisbon, are overwhelmingly agricultural, dominated by vast
cork plantations well suited to the low rainfall, sweltering heat and
arid soil. This impoverished province is divided into vast estates which
provide nearly half of the world's cork but only a sparse living for its
rural inhabitants. Visitors to the Alentejo often head for Évora , the
province's dominant and most historic city. But the Portalegre hills
north of Évora and the Alentejo's Costa Azul are a breath of fresh air
to the stifling plains of the inland landscape.
With its long, sandy beaches and picturesque rocky coves, the southern
coastal region of the Algarve has attracted more tourist development
than the rest of the country put together, turning much of the coast
into a shabby concrete jungle. The coastline has two different
characters. West of Faro , the lively capital of the Algarve, you'll
find the classic postcard images of the province - a series of tiny bays
and coves, broken up by weird rocky outcrops and fantastic grottoes, at
their most exotic around the resort of Lagos . To the east of Faro you
encounter the first of a series of sandy offshore islets, the Ilhas ,
which front the coastline for some 25 miles, and the lower-key resorts
of Olhão and Tavira . Not only is this the quieter section of the coast
but it has the bonus of much warmer water than further west. Throughout
the Algarve accommodation can be a major problem in summer, with hotels
block-booked by package companies and pensions filling up early in the
day; private rooms or campsites help fill in the gaps, but if you're
unlucky you might find yourself sleeping out for the odd night. If you
fancy something a little less touristy, head inland where you'll find a
more Portuguese way of life at Silves , the impressive former capital of
the Moors.
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