TravelMuse - Portugal Travel Guide & Vacation Information

A church located on Portugal's São Miguel Island.
Vitor Oliveira

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Portugal shares the Iberian Peninsula at the western edge of Europe with Spain. Geographically and somewhat culturally isolated from its neighbor, Portugal has a rich, cultural heritage, lively cities and a beautiful countryside. Although it was once one of the poorest countries in Western Europe, the end of dictatorship and beginning of democracy in 1974, coupled with incorporation into the European Union in 1986, has led to a significant increase in prosperity. However, Portugal is still one of the best value destinations on the continent. This is because it offers outstanding landscape diversity, due to its North-South disposition along the western shore of the Iberian Peninsula.

You can travel in a single day from green, vine- and tree-covered mountains in the North, to rocky mountains with spectacular slopes and falls in the central part of the country, to a near-desert landscape in the Alentejo region, and finally, to the glamorous beach vacation destination Algarve. The climate, combined with investments in the golfing infrastructure in recent years, has also turned the country into an international golfing haven. Portugal was recently named “Best Golf Destination 2006” by readers of Golfers Today, a British publication. Fourteen of Portugal’s courses are rated in the top 100 courses in Europe. If you want a condensed view of European landscapes, culture and way of life (taken from a beautiful Mediterranean perspective), Portugal might very well fit the bill.