This
old portuguese saying is a very accurate one . I'm born in France but Portugal
is the country of my heart.
I'll
try in these few pages to make you discover how this country is beautiful.
Really if you don't know where to spend your holidays, one solution : Portugal!
"And if Spain is the head of Europe, Portugal, set as its Western extremity, where land ends and sea begins, is as it where the crown on the head".
When looking to Portugal on the map of Europe Today we can suspect that this pint-size country can´t offer much of interest.
A great mistake. Portugal has more to show than some bigger countries.
Portugal is one of the world's oldest countries. It became an independent nation in 1143, and has maintained its independence and national boundaries from the 13th century to this day, save for a brief period under Spanish domination between 1580 and 1640. Portugal became a republic on October 5, 1910 and today is a strong democracy.
Portugal's geographic location at the Southwest corner of Continental Europe assures quick and easy access not only to the European market but also to the Eastern seaboard of the United States and the African continent.
Nearly half of the 10 million population is economically active. Population density is highest in the Lisbon area, in the northern city of Porto and other coastal cities.
In Portugal we can find some of the sugariest beaches, tumbles of Roman ruins, medieval walled towns that look much as they did 700 years ago, castles galore, large vineyars, exuberant country festivals, red-brows plains of cork oaks and olives, shepherds tending clouds of sheep, nice fishing villages ...
The extraordinary thing about 20th-century Portugal is that it´s so much unspoiled and so much itself despite the fact that it is only a short flight from London or Paris. But if you want to see Portugal of the picture postcards, the Portugal of old, you´ll have to hurry. Now that it has joined the European Community things are changing fast.
