The Berkeley Guides:
Berkeley Guide to Europe:
Portugal:
Background Information for
Portugal
By Jessica Blatt
Portugal will surprise you with its diverse landscape. In a single day, you can play in the snow of the Serra da Estrela, cross the arid Alentejo, and end up on a sun-drenched Algarvian beach. Further north, the wine-growing Minho region is cool, wet, and unbelievably green.
While it may seem a fairly insular, provincial place today, Portugal's distinctive character is the product of many centuries of intense contact with other cultures. Over 2,000 years ago, the Lusitanians of Western Iberia were conquered by no less a Roman than Julius Caesar. Five centuries of Roman rule ended with the fall of the Empire, leaving a vacuum soon filled by Germanic invaders who established a Christian kingdom in the north. Their reign was relatively brief, but served to solidify the hold of Christianity on the region, which was to survive the Islamization of Iberia in the centuries that followed. The first "Moors" (Arabs and Berbers) arrived in the 8th century, bringing sophisticated agricultural and civil engineering techniques and a civilization that remained the dominant power in the area until the 12th-century Reconquest by Christians from the north along with foreign crusaders. Throughout the next four centuries, the small agricultural nation became a major power in its own right, leading the European age of expansion with bloody land grabs and slave trading in Africa, the Americas, and the Far East. It was, however, unable to maintain its own autonomy, which by the end of the 17th century had been lost to Spanish "unification."
Portuguese independence was restored in 1640, but the nation's power declined in the 17th and 18th centuries, during which time it relied heavily on an almost neocolonial relationship with England, which provided naval protection and a market for Portuguese products. After a host of insurrections and power struggles, including invasions by the armies of Napoleon and Wellington, the country became a republic in 1910, but it spent almost 40 years in intellectual and social isolation after dictator António Salazar took power in 1930. The Salazar regime outlawed communism, jailed labor organizers, and dispatched secret police (called the PIDE) to infiltrate and suppress student protests. Salazar's successor, Marcello Caetano, was overthrown on April 25, 1974, by military leaders fed up with a state that had all the trappings of fascism. The democracy then cautiously established allowed Portugal to finally be accepted into the European Union in 1986 and cleared the path for a great social, political, and intellectual abertura (opening).
Still, in many ways Portugal has been left behind the rest of Europe--its reputation as the "Third World" of Western Europe derives from both the sad state of its economy and an essential conservatism one doesn't generally associate with the Continent. Young people have many worries. Their demographic group is one of the largest unemployed sectors in the country; and the perception that refugees streaming in from war-torn Angola and Mozambique are hurting the job situation has led to increased racial tension and even violence. Still, most maintain a carefree attitude, rivaling their Spanish neighbors in the art of staying out all night. Don't expect France or Italy's glamour here. Instead, you'll find the lowest prices in Western Europe, a culture that is an enigmatic mix of the traditional and the cosmopolitan, and truly stunning natural beauty.
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