PORTUGAL GASTRONOMY • Portuguese food is distinctive and varied, featuring many regional specialities that have evolved from local traditions and ingredients. • Much of Portuguese cooking is spice based, thanks largely to Vasco da Gama and the other navigators of his time. He and his seafaring countrymen traversed the globe collecting pepper, cloves, curry, nutmeg, cinnamon, and a range of savoury foods which serve as the base of many dishes today. Fish is a mainstay of Portuguese cuisine, particularly sardines and the ever-present dried codfish. Portuguese meat is both tasty and safe to eat, particularly pork which for centuries has been an important livestock in the country's rural economy. The annual slaughter between December and Easter is still a major event in the winter calendar of most farms and villages. In the Bairrada region north of Coimbra, many restaurants specialise in roast sucking pig. Some parts of the pig in feijoada, a bean stew made with black pudding and pork knuckle. PORTUGAL LEISURE • Despite its size, Portugal offers a great variety of terrain, with a wide range of sports and leisure activities to match. Golf and tennis facilities have been well established for many years, and in the south the mild climate means that both sports can be enjoyed all year round. In the Algarve, most of the courts in tourist complexes are hard-surfaced, although elsewhere many are clay. The larger resorts in the Algarve, Madeira and the Estoril Coast & Sintra region offer tennis coaching holidays. • Portugal’s resorts are also famous for their golf courses, which include some of Europe’s finest. The majority offer coaching for golfers of all abilities and specialist holidays are now easy to arrange. Surfing, windsurfing and sailing are extremely popular along Portugal’s 800 kilometres of coastline and around the Atlantic islands of Madeira and the Azores. The best beach for surfing is the world-famous Guincho, just outside Cascais in the Estoril Coast, where international championships are often held. Also in the Algarve, the modern marinas at Lagos, Albufeira and Vilamoura are important yachting centres. PORTUGAL CURRENCY • Portugal currency is the euro. You can exchange money at banks, which are open from 8.30 a.m. to 3 p.m. five working days a week; at bureaux de change; and at automatic currency exchange machines (these are for currency sale transactions only). • In Portugal, the most commonly used credit cards are: Visa, Visa Electron, American Express, Diners Club, Europay / MasterCard, JCB and Maestro. DRIVING IN PORTUGAL • Vehicles drive on the right in Portugal. Unless otherwise indicated, vehicles coming from the right have priority in squares and at intersections. At junctions with roundabouts, vehicles already on the roundabout have right of way. Road signs comply with international rules. It is illegal to drive with a blood alcohol level of 0.5 grams per litre or more. All occupants must wear seat belts. PORTUGAL TELEPHONES • In public telephone booths, coins and special cards can be used. They are sold in Portugal Telecom shops, post offices and some kiosks and news-stands (with a sign indicating this). • All telephone numbers in Portugal are composed of nine digits. To call from abroad to Portugal, it is necessary to dial the international access code 00 and the country code 351. To call abroad from Portugal, dial 00, the country code, the area code and then the number wanted. The dialling codes of the various countries are affixed in public telephone booths. USEFUL TELEPHONE NUMBERS IN PORTUGAL SOS - National Emergency Number 112 Lisbon International Airport 218 413 500 Oporto International Airport 229 432 400 Faro International Airport 289 800 800 An Overview of Traditions and Culture in Portugal • Portugal is a predominantly Roman Catholic country with a close-knit family ethic. Its rich culture results from many influences, including Celtic, Lusitanian, Phoenician, Germanic, Visigoth, Viking, Sephardic Jewish, and Moorish. In recent decades, the country has undergone a renaissance in the arts, and the cities of Lisbon, Porto, and Guimarães have all been designated European Capitals of Culture. Ceramic A Literature of Disquiet: Portuguese Writer List of Portuguese monarchs • The House of Burgundy (1139–1383) • The House of Aviz (1385–1581) • The House of Habsburg (1581–1640) • The House of Braganza (1640–1910) Historic places/ monuments Belém Tower Belém Tower, officially the Tower of Saint Vincent is a 16th-century fortification located in Lisbon that served as a point of embarkation and disembarkation for Portuguese explorers and as a ceremonial gateway to Lisbon. Historic places/ monuments Park and National Palace of Pena The Pena Palace is a Romanticist castle in São Pedro de Penaferrim, in the municipality of Sintra, on the Portuguese Riviera. The castle stands on the top of a hill in the Sintra Mountains above the town of Sintra, and on a clear day it can be easily seen from Lisbon and much of its metropolitan area. It is a national monument and constitutes one of the major expressions of 19th-century Romanticism in the world. Historic places/ monuments Jerónimos Monastery The Jerónimos Monastery or Hieronymites Monastery (Mosteiro dos Jerónimos, Portuguese pronunciation: [muʃˈtɐjɾu ðuʃ ʒɨˈɾɔnimuʃ]), is a former monastery of the Order of Saint Jerome near the Tagus river in the parish of Belém, in the Lisbon Municipality, Portugal; it was secularised on 28 December 1833 by state decree [1] and its ownership transferred to the charitable institution, Real Casa Pia de Lisboa. Historic places/ monuments The monastery is one of the most prominent examples of the Portuguese Late Gothic Manueline style of architecture in Lisbon. It was classified a UNESCO World Heritage Site, along with the nearby Tower of Belém, in 1983. Castelo de S. Jorge • São Jorge Castle is a historic castle in the Portuguese capital of Lisbon, located in the freguesia of Santa Maria Maior. Human occupation of the castle hill dates to at least the 8th century BC while the first fortifications built date from the 1st century BC. The hill on which São Jorge Castle stands has played an important part in the history of Lisbon, having served as the location of fortifications occupied successively by Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans, and Moors, before its conquest by the Portuguese in the 1147 Siege of Lisbon. Historic places/ monuments Bairro Alto Bairro Alto is a central district of the city of Lisbon, the Portuguese capital. Unlike many of the civil parishes of Lisbon, this region can be commonly explained as a loose association of neighbourhoods, with no formal local political authority but social and historical significance to the urban community of Lisbon and of Portugal as a whole. The bairro or "neighbourhood" resulted Historic places/ monuments from urban expansion in the 16th century, forming outside the walls of the historical city, and is characterized by an almost orthogonal tract Praça do Comércio The Praça do Comércio is located in the city of Lisbon, Portugal. Situated near the Tagus river, the square is still commonly known as Terreiro do Paço, because it was the location of Historic places/ monuments the Paços da Ribeira until it was destroyed by the great 1755 Lisbon earthquake. After the earthquake, the square was completely remodeled as part of the rebuilding of the Pombaline Downtown, ordered by Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, 1st Marquis of P Padrão dos Descobrimentos The Padrão dos Descobrimentos (also called Monument to the Discoveries) was built in honour of Henry the Navigator, who was instrumental in the success of the Portuguese explorations during the fifteenth century, a period now known as the Age of Discoveries. Historic places/ monuments The Age of Discoveries started in 1415 with the capture of the North African city of Ceuta by the Portuguese and reached a peak at the turn of the sixteenth century when Vasco da Gama discovered a shorter route to India and Pedro Álvares Cabral discovered Brazil. National Sanctuary of Christ the King The Sanctuary of Christ the King is a Catholic monument and shrine dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ overlooking the city of Lisbon situated in Almada, in Portugal. It was inspired by the Christ the Redeemer statue of Rio de Janeiro, in Brazil, after the Cardinal Patriarch of Lisbon visited that monument. The project was inaugurated on 17 May 1959, while Portugal was ruled by the authoritarian President of the Historic places/ monuments Council of Ministers António de Oliveira Salazar who gave his final permission for the project. The giant statue in cement was erected to express gratitude because the Portuguese were spared the effects of World War II Sanctuary of Our Lady of Fátima The Sanctuary of Fátima (Portuguese: Santuário de Fátima), also known as Sanctuary of Our Lady of Fátima (Santuário de Nossa Senhora de Fátima), is a group of Catholic religious buildings and structures in Cova da Iria, in the civil parish of Fátima, in the municipality of Ourém, inPortuga .