Portugal is a tiny country, only 560km by 220km, and is located at the westernmost edge of Europe. An area covering of 92,000 sq km, it is divided up into 7 conventional provinces (provncias). These are the Minho (after the Rio Minho stream), the Douro (where you’ll find the city of Porto, named after the Rio Douro), Trs-os-Montes (by the mountains), the Beira (border), the Estremadura (containing Lisbon), the Alentejo (past the Rio Tejo) and then the Algarve (from the Moorish for ‘west country’ al-gharb).

While the climate in Portugal has both Atlantic and Mediterranean influences, the shore is created completely by the Atlantic sea, a fact that some visitors are shocked to discover as we like to think of Portugal as Mediterranean. This should be because of the bright colors, long days of sun and influences from cultures that have also become a urgent part of the culture in Spain and along the south coast of France for instance. The Mediterranean influence is especially obvious in the southern parts of Portugal. The Stream Tagus (Rio Tejo) divides Portugal into its clearly different northwards and southern halves. In the north the population has Celtic and Germanic origins, more conventional farming strategies and a cooler climate. South of the Rio Tejo folk have darker skin as this area was Roman and then Moorish territory, and farming tends towards figs, cork and oranges instead of the potatoes and corn of the north. In truth, Portugal produces more than 50% of the planet’s wine corks, around fifteen thousand million every year.

The main towns in Portugal are the capital Lisbon, with its various choice of Portuguese culture ; the second-biggest town of Porto, which is also Portugal’s commercial capital; and university cities like Coimbra and vora, and the traditional capital of Guimares. There are not many actually massive cities in Portugal but a multitude of tiny, provincial cities that are worth visiting. Basically , the beaches in Portugal are the main draw for tourists, especially in the Algarve. There are beaches all of the way up the west coast, but the sea has a tendency to be cooler and even cold as far north as Viana do Castelo.

Aside from the mainland, Portugal is composed of Madeira and the Azores, islands colonised in the fifteenth century. Southwest of Portugal Madeira is 900km off the west coast of Africa, and the Azores archipelago is composed of 9 islands 1440km west of Lisbon. Both are too far away to form part of a visit to Portugal but are favored holiday maker destinations in their own right.