Portugal may not be a large or densely populated country to European standards, still, visiting Portugal is an intense affair. Not only has Portugal been in a leading role in European history, literally leading the way to the world of other continents, but along with that, its cities and towns, its more distant regions have for centuries known an economic and cultural development of which the traces today are many, fascinating and authentic. Take for instance the famous Portuguese tiles, the blue and white azulejos, inherited from the Moorish occupation, but refined into an absolutely fabulous and unequalled form or art which is to be found all over Portugal. Lisbon, the main focus of this report, is undoubtedly one of the most attractive, gentle and pleasant capitals in Europe. A massive earthquake and tsunami destroyed much of it in 1755, but Lisbon recovered and knows only too well why it erected a large statue for its then leader, the Marquês de Pombal. The quake may effectively have played a role in the fact that Lisbon does not have the imperial grandeur of Paris, Berlin, Rome or London; but it displays a uniqueness in everything it represents, from the atmosphere around the Praça Luís de Camões or the Alfama district to the spectacular views over the Tagus River from one of the elegant 'miradouros', all the way to the sweet-scented 'pastelarias' where the 'pastéis de nata' are going over the counter more swiftly than water can flow.

Sixty years of personal union of the Crown with Habsburg Spain have not watered down the strong Portuguese identity. In 1640, at the end of those sixty years, only the North African colony of Ceuta manoeuvred to remain with Spain, rather than returning to Portuguese sovereignty. Centuries of Moorish occupation until well into the 12th century have undoubtedly influenced culture, art, architecture and language; they even gave a name to Portugal's southern region of the Algarve, 'Al Gharb', 'the West'; but the Moorish inheritance has furthermore been simply absorbed into a Portuguese recreation, through the discoveries of the 15th and 16th centuries spread out over the entire lusophone world. The first region beyond Portugal to experience this was Madeira, as from 1419.

And maybe it's time now to start our digital trip through the streets, squares and viewpoints of Lisbon, to get to the southernmost and south-westernmost points of the European continent in the Algarve and to embark on an anticlockwise tour of the great island of Madeira... Boa viagem!