As the wintery sun yawns and slips towards the duvet of the horizon there’s a mini pilgrimage in Alcochete on the southern banks of the Tagus. The place of worship is Alcach, a bar with jazzy sounds and chairs facing west. […]
It’s not that Arrábida Natural Park is a secret; Portuguese holidaymakers know all about it. But, apart from a handful of more inquisitive travellers, other nationalities are generally conspicuous by their absence. […]
After 14 years in the Canary Islands we already knew about the important difference between Britain’s centrally heated houses and ones in (mostly) warmer climes with little or no heating. But we still weren’t prepared for the temperature drop between the Canaries and central Portugal. […]
There are countries where finding something with a local flavour (no international fast food franchises allowed) to satisfy this yen can be problematic. Portugal isn’t one of them. […]
It’s funny that something I learnt at an early age – how to direct artillery fire onto an enemy position with pinpoint accuracy – could become an essential part of my working life decades later. […]
On a sizzler of a day in mid May, when the Sado was a mill pond, we finally got around to finding out what Troia was actually like. […]
Individual countries within the EU retain their own way of doing things across many aspects of life. One which is especially noticeable to visitors is when it comes to the question of paying with cash or card. […]
This is our totally biased take on the Lisbon districts where we’ve temporarily laid our hats, starting with the nightlife centre of the city. […]
Coffee and a bowl of fruit (bananas from Madeira, mango and pineapple from former Portuguese colonies, local cherries which are just at the end of their season) are eaten on the back terrace in the company of two black cats who look as sleepy as we do… […]
I’m currently engrossed in ‘Conquerors – How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire’. It is an enthralling account of Portugal’s thirst for discovery, and riches. As the pages turn I jump between open-mouthed admiration of […]
Economically and gastronomically upwardly mobile, the city of Setúbal, south of Lisbon, has more secrets than the average espionage agent; these are just six of them… […]
For months we’ve lived at the end of a dirt track, in this lovely quinta with its enormous iron gates, always turning right beyond them, back along the dusty, rutted track to reach the road. Today we turn left, and I think of Jean Ainslie… […]
We already knew Setúbal in Portugal was famed for its choco frito (fried cuttlefish) restaurants, but we had no idea that the rest of the gastronomic scene was quite so, well, interesting. […]
The clanging of bells as goats made their way to their daytime pasture was our alarm call in the morning; a mixed chorus of song from golden orioles, bee-eaters and azure-winged magpies serenaded us over breakfast under a grape covered arbour; […]
Despite stifling temperatures and the smell of a country burning was on the breeze, stepping off the train at Coimbra’s city centre train station was like a breath of fresh air. […]
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