Page 339 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Europe

THE IBERIAN PENINSULA  337

PORTUGAL

Most visitors to Portugal head for the sandy coves, pretty fishing villages, and
manicured golf courses of the Algarve. But beyond the south-coast resorts lies
the least-explored corner of Western Europe: a country of rugged landscapes,
ancient cities with proud traditions, and quiet rural backwaters.

Portugal appears to have no obvious most famous product – port wine, grown
geographical claim to nationhood, yet on steeply terraced vineyards hewn out of
the country has existed within borders mountainsides in the wild upper reaches
virtually unchanged for nearly 800 years, of the Douro valley.
making it one of the oldest nation states
in Europe. Its ten million people are History
proudly independent from, and distrustful The Romans, who arrived in 216 BC, called
of, neighboring Spain. the whole peninsula Hispania, but the
For a small country, the regions of region between the Douro and Tagus
Portugal are immensely varied. The rivers was named Lusitania after the
rural Minho and Trás-os-Montes in the Celtiberian tribe that lived there. After
north are the most traditional. Over the the collapse of the Roman Empire in the
last few decades, many inhabitants of 5th century, Hispania was overrun first
these neglected regions have been by Germanic tribes, then by Moors from
forced to emigrate in search of work. North Africa in 711.
At the same time, the Algarve, with Reconquest by the Christian kingdoms
its beautiful sandy beaches and warm of the north began in earnest in the 11th
Mediterranean climate, has become century. In the process, Portucale, a small
a vacation playground for Northern county of the kingdom of León and
Europeans, as well as the Portuguese Castile, was declared an independent
themselves. Lisbon, the capital, at the kingdom by its ruler, Afonso Henriques, in
mouth of the Tagus, is a cosmopolitan 1139. With the aid of English crusaders, he
metropolis with a rich cultural life. Oporto succeeded in recapturing Lisbon in 1147.
is a serious rival, especially in terms of The kingdom expanded south to the
commerce and industry, and is the center Algarve, and Portuguese sailors began to
for the production and export of Portugal’s explore the African coast and the Atlantic.

Fishing boats on the beach at the popular Algarve resort of Albufeira
The picturesque white village of Azenhas do Mar, clinging to a clifftop overlooking the Atlanic Ocean

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