Portugal Feb ' 99

Astonishing - besides pleased by a fairly good impression from the traveler - that someone that may confuse Portugal with Spain!
These impressive pictures of Portugal are "hosted" in a "Spain Picture Gallery" as stated just right below ?Spain picture by Nick Jenkins".

More ignorance?
Yes Nick, you have very, very nice picts but it seems you have missed the enchantments of the places and what it might have told you.

Faro is a very, very old town which was, for same period, a very flourishing site of the region's economy, about 200 years ago. Around Faro you might have seen one the nature protected areas, with its fauna and hundreds of small islands; you might have seen the Roman ruins of 1800 years ago; you might have gone to see some of the tastier oranges you can find in Mediterranean coast...

Sagres, Sintra and Lisbon - the birthplaces of the Discoveries, the 1st Globalization movement, planed as such. You have for sure understood that these places and its History are some of the landmarks of a nation - whose unchanged boundaries date from the 12th century - which was the most powerful and rich on earth at the turn of the 15th century and for about 100 years. During this period Portugal made proof of Earth's sphere shape; spread its character - not cultural domination, just the character you found on each and every person you met - across the world, from what is today's Brasil to Timor, on Indonesia sea, from Angola and Guinea to Mocambique and many, many paces on the west India coast or the furthest Macau, the today "new Hong Kong".

Japan, experiencing with the Portuguese sailors and businessmen, its very 1st contact with Occidental culture, on the decade of 1490, came into fair silver trade with its eternal enemy thanks to the entrepreneurship of the Portuguese.
Thailand is as well worth mentioned: its wars against the Chinese invaders in the 16th /17th century as well as the Myanmar and Laos warriors in the 18th century, are as well milestones in the History of those cultures and an heritage Portugal keeps on its heart, as it marked by the language - the Portuguese language is the 4th most spoken language in the world, after the Chinese, the English and the Castellano (or Spanish).
What to say? Go back to Portugal again, on spring, taste the food again, and again, and again, try the wine (not in the Algarve but in Alentejo - Évora and on Douro river - Porto), travel up north to Coimbra, to Porto, to Braga and to Guimaraes. By the way: train from Algarve to Lisbon takes 3h now; by bus, always took 3h as well. :-)


helder.martins@sapo.pt, 2006-05-12 02:52:00