Viva, amigos!
(Portuguese for ‘hello, my friends!’)
Artist Sebastian Rodrigues, 1953.
Photo credit: 1stfloor, Pinterest
Portugal
Land of wine and olives
A golfing Haven
A Mediterranean Fatima
15th century New World discoverers
A Monarchy
A Republic
A Military Dictatorship
Benagil Cave, Lagos, Algarve Coast, Portugal
Posted by C. Struik, Pinterest
Cristiana Silva, Miss Universe Portugal 2020
Posted by Yahaira, Pinterest
Portugal is a country rich in history,
traditions, art and natural beauty.
…and that doesn’t even start to cover it!
Malzada of Portugal vintage paper doll
By Dorothy Wagstaff
Why have I chosen Portugal for today’s blog?
I try to feature every now and then 1 of the more than 190 countries that have inkspired readers in them. No particular order, although I do enjoy learning more about countries I am not as familiar with.
And so, today we have PORTUGAL!
Lisbon, Portugal
Photo credit: isango!
All of the above ‘labels’ are true, at one time in Portugal’s history. Once known as one of the poorest countries in Western Europe, following the end of a dictatorship in 1974 democracy was introduced. It resulted in significant prosperity!
Copyright 2010, hugolescargot.com; Pinterest
The official National Flower is lavender .
Portugal is about the size of the
state of Indiana, USA;
(Indiana is pink, center then to the right)
Courtesy of ephotopix, Pinterest
yet it has a wide diversity of folk customs, foods and terrain.
It can be correctly called a land of waterfalls, rocky and green mountains, caves, beaches, islands and even sand dunes!
The Douro Valley has some of the most scenic
wine regions in Portugal.
Grape harvest and wine production go back
more than 2,000 years.
Borders were marked in 1756,
making it the oldest demarcated wine region in the world.
But wait, there’s more!
Kevmrc travel
While looking up info for this blog, I found out Portugal has a very significant World Heritage Site.
It is a huge section of rock, carved along the Douro River, which separates Portugal from Spain. On both sides there are prehistoric carvings that are guesstimated to be the earliest carvings ever discovered,
and they just kept carving for thousands of years!
What does that mean?
It means there are thousands of carvings that depict human history for thousands of years!
Wow.
TANN, PinterestI did find it hard to find a good photo, but the one above has some helper white lines!
For being a rather small country,
Portugal has a lot of interesting things
packed in to it.
The Portuguese National Anthem is
“A Portuguesa”
(Or “The Portuguese”)
It was adopted in 1911.
The current official version was adopted in 1957.
Traditional designs of Portuguese tiles Stickers Coloray, Found on Pinterest
Portugal is the oldest European country
with the same borders!
In 1986 it became part of the European Union.
A series of international paper dolls found in Kellogg’s KRUMBLES cereal, mid 1950s
Portuguese is the sixth most common language spoken in the world by native speakers.
That means not taught in school as an additional language,
but people’s first language.
How is that possible?
Portuguese is the official language of:
Portugal
Angola
Mozambique
Cape Verde
São Tome’ and Principe
Guinea-Bissau
East Timor
Macau and…..
Brazil -
who has the largest # of Native Portuguese speakers
in South America.
Terceira , Azores Islands, Portugal Azores Islands, Portugal
Photo credit: pedrosimoes7
Azores Islands, Portugal
I discovered a fascinating man-made water spillway while learning about Portugal.
Covao dos Conchos, Portugal
I’ve never seen anything like it!
It is a Bell-mouth spillway.
It prevents water from spilling over a dam edge.
Excess water goes down through the spillway and exits farther down the ‘wall’ of the dam.
I found many credits for these photos and could not determine who were the originals. Apologies.
Portugal was named Best Golf Destination 2008by Golf magazine readers.
It has 14 courses rated in the top 100 of Europe.
No credit listed
There are many famous Portuguese people,
here are just a few:
Carmen Miranda
actress, singer, entertainer
Art.com, photo from late 1940s
Ferdinand Magellan
Explorer
Ferdinand Magellan, world explorer
Britannica.com
Cristiano RonaldoProfessional athlete (footballer)
Cristiano Ronaldo Posted by Zfriazzi, Pinterest
There is so much I discovered about Portugal, and this brief overview just scratches the surface.
It has certainly made me want to visit and explore this beautiful country!
São Miguel Island, Portugal
I think the last thing I will feature today
is the UNESCO World Heritage Site of
Sintra.
Sintra is a magical place of fairytale castles, Roman ruins, beaches, parks, gardens & historic palaces.
Harbors and Havens Travel blog
Photo cred: Le Boudu Monde
Pena Palace, Sintra, Portugal Photo cred: Ciccio Nutella
That’s it for today!
Portugal has so much more
than what I briefly shared with you today.
Why don’t you share with us your
Vacation/time in Portugal?
‘Ate’ mais!’
(See you soon!)
Inkspired
Castles of Sintra
Photo credit: Condé Nast Traveler, Pinterest
Places where I scrounged information from:
(in no particular order)
wiki travel.org
wanderingPortugal.com
2010hugolescargot.com
fluent.com
TripAdvisor.com
en.Wikipedia.org
Pinterest
