Lisbon, Coimbra, Porto

Lisbon, Porto, Coimbra... a very brief visit to Portugal in early September 2017. Small shops, tatty buildings, broken footpaths are still evident even in the major towns we visited. But the place is lively and has many other beautiful things to see, as well as some very decent wines.

A world power in the 15th and 16th centuries — a seat of learning, commerce, the arts and the heart of a vast overseas empire — Portugal's fortunes declined gradually through war, commercial competition from other imperial powers, natural disaster (the 1755 Lisbon earthquake) and fifty years of military dictatorship in the 20th century. Only after joining the European Union in the mid-1980s did living standards again start to approach the level of other European states.

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