Lisbon
Spread across steep hillsides that overlook the Rio Tejo, Lisbon offers all the delights you’d expect of Portugal’s star attraction, yet with half the fuss of other European capitals.
Spread across steep hillsides that overlook the Rio Tejo, Lisbon offers all the delights you’d expect of Portugal’s star attraction, yet with half the fuss of other European capitals.
Castle towns with cobbled streets or lively resorts on golden beaches. You choose.
From across the Rio Douro at sunset, romantic Porto, the country’s second-largest city, looks like a pop-up town.
As far as touristy towns go, Lagos (lah-goosh) has, fortunately – or unfortunately – got the lot.
One of Portugal’s most beautifully preserved medieval towns, Évora is an enchanting place to delve into the past.
The medieval capital of Portugal for over a hundred years, and site of the country’s greatest university for the past five centuries, Coimbra wears its weighty importance in Portuguese history with gritty dignity.
Algarve’s capital has a more distinctly Portuguese feel than most resort towns.
Cascais (kush-kaish) has rocketed from sleepy fishing village to much-loved summertime playground of wave-frolicking lisboêtas ever since King Luís I went for a dip in 1870.
Set on either side of the meandering Rio Gilão, Tavira is a charming town.
With its rippling mountains, dewy forests thick with ferns and lichen, exotic gardens and glittering palaces, Sintra is like a page torn from a fairy tale.
Portugal’s third-largest city is an elegant town laced with ancient narrow lanes closed to vehicles and strewn with plazas and a splendid array of baroque churches.
The jewel of the Costa Verde, Viana do Castelo is blessed with both an appealing medieval centre and lovely beaches just outside the city.
Overlooking some of the Algarve’s most dramatic scenery, the small, elongated village of Sagres has an end-of-the-world feel with its sea-carved cliffs and empty, wind-whipped fortress high above the ocean.
Tomar is one of central Portugal’s most appealing small cities.
Though hardly a classic beauty, the thriving port town of Setúbal (shtoo-bahl) makes a terrific base for exploring the region’s sublime natural assets.
With a warren of narrow, cobbled lanes running down to a wide, cliff-backed beach, Nazaré is Estremadura’s most picturesque coastal resort.
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