Portugal [antikvár]

Introduction Portugal has long been overlooked on the traveller's European itinerary. This is a land apart, at the westernmost corner of Europe, its development hindered for hundreds of years by poverty and political turmoil. Ruled by Romans and Moors for centuries, and perennially in the threatening shadow of Spain, it finally established its independence and its frontiers in the 13th century (making it one of Europe's oldest countries). Two hundred years later its mariners ventured into the unknown, ultimately discovering a sea route to India and turning Portugal into one of the richest and most powerful kingdoms in the Western hemisphere. But the gold and glory were short-lived. Portugal slipped into chaos and obscurity on the forgotten hem of Europe. Wracked by political upheaval, including 48 years of dictatorship and a revolution in 1974, it has only recently begun to emerge from the shadows. In 1986 it joined the European Union and looked to a future within Europe. Thanks largely to massive EU funding, changes since then have been fast and furious: new highways to Spain, new urban development, new enterprises and new confidence. But the long isolation, especially the xenophobic period of dictatorship under Salazar, has left much of the country extraordinarily, often appealingly, old-fashioned. This includes the capital, Lisbon, which, despite ferocious redevelopment in the run-up to Expo '98, remains one of Europe's most attractive and relaxing cities. Although stretches of the country's 800 km of Atlantic coastline are terribly polluted and the southern Algarve coastline has long