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Portugal

While it's true that Portugal is no longer the Iberian Peninsula's best-kept secret, it's fairly easy to escape the crowds. Even at the busiest resorts in the Algarve, it only takes a short bus ride or a walk across countryside to reveal rarely visited places that still offer the feeling of discovery - a sentiment close to the Portuguese soul.

Portugal has an old-fashioned charm, with medieval castles and picture-perfect villages scattered over meandering coastlines and flower-covered hillsides. From the ancient university town of Coimbra to Lord Byron's favourite Portuguese haunt, Sintra, the country's proud history can be felt everywhere.

Mapa de Portugal

Sun-kissed beaches like Cascais and Sagres offer enticements of a more hedonistic sort. Indeed, the dramatic, end-of-the-world cliffs, wild dune-covered beaches, protected coves and long, sandy islands of Portugal's coastline have long enchanted visitors and locals alike. Meanwhile, the country's capital, Lisbon, and its northern rival, Porto, are magical places for the wanderer, with riverside views, cobblestone streets and rattling trams framed by looming cathedrals.

Coimbra

Like a great fortress of learning, Coimbra’s ancient university occupies strategic heights above a lazy stretch of the Rio Mondego. Clambering up to the crown of monumental halls and libraries is an absurdly picturesque maze of medieval streets. Yet the whole scene avoids preciousness thanks to an uncommonly raucous student life.

Winding alleyways still channel last-minute dashes to lectures, and cafés buzz with utopian yearnings and, after a certain hour, beery good times.

Founded in 1290, the city’s university has a pedigree equal to any European seat of learning, though in fact Coimbra only became its permanent home in 1537. The city was also Portugal’s capital in the 12th and 13th centuries, evidenced by a small but remarkable assembly of Romanesque and Gothic buildings. Outside the dense old city, you can also enjoy pleasantly leafy walks along Coimbra’s riverfront, shady boulevards, and numerous parks and gardens. The city also makes a fine base for day trips, including mountain excursions or an afternoon wander among the remarkable Roman ruins at Conimbriga. If you’re here in May, throw yourself into Coimbra’s boozy student bash, Queima das Fitas.

Lisboa, Portugal

Sintra

With richly hued palaces, mist-covered forests and the ruins of a craggy Moorish castle overlooking a sleepy village, Sintra is like a page torn from a fairy tale. Not surprisingly, it’s long been a favourite with out-of-towners. The Portuguese royals summered here, as did the Moors before them, and it was one of the few places in Portugal that Lord Byron liked, inspiring his travel epic Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (‘Lo! Cintra’s glorious Eden intervenes, in variegated maze of mount and glen’).

Sintra makes a marvellous getaway. Its exceptional microclimate encourages exotic vegetation, and you can undertake some pleasant walks through the countryside, either clambering beneath turrets guarded by gargoyles or investigating a cork-lined monastery deep in the woods.

In addition to its bizarre and beautiful palaces, mansions and finely manicured gardens, Sintra boasts a historic centre that’s listed as a Unesco World Heritage site. The early Iberians made it a site of cult worship; the Moors built the castle; the Middle Ages brought monasteries; the nobility bolted here after the 1755 earthquake; then, in the 19th century, it became one of the first centres of European romantic architecture.

Even if you’re only in Lisbon for the weekend, it’s worth making the short journey up to Sintra, if not for an overnight, at least for the day.

Cascais

The attractive seaside town of Cascais, with its lovely beaches and youthful air, is a favourite among weekending Lisboêtas and travellers. While its resort status is undisputed – many shops and cafés cater largely to summertime crowds – it remains an active fishing port, with an appealing old town full of narrow, winding lanes.

Cascais was once a fishing village, but in 1870 the royal court came here for the summer, with a trail of nobility in its wake. Such patronage has left it with some grand pastel-coloured buildings and a striking citadel. Apart from beaches, Cascais has a few quirky museums, some wild gardens and a lively fish market.

Palacio de Sintra, Portugal

Sagres

Overlooking some of the Algarve’s most dramatic scenery, the tiny village of Sagres has an end-of-the-world feel with its sea-carved cliffs and empty, windwhipped fortress high above the ocean. Despite its connection to Portugal’s rich nautical past, there isn’t much of historical interest in town. Its appeal lies mainly in its access to fine beaches and its laid-back vibe, with simple cheery, cafés and bars long popular with the surfing crowd. Outside of town, the striking cliffs of Cabo de São Vicente make for an enchanting visit.

Sagres is where dashing Prince Henry the Navigator built a new, fortified town and a semimonastic school of navigation that specialised in cartography, astronomy and ship design, steering Portugal on towards the Age of Discoveries.

At least, that’s according to history and myth. Henry was, among other things, governor of the Algarve and had a residence in its primary port town, Lagos, from where most expeditions set sail. He certainly did put together a kind of nautical think-tank, though how much thinking went on out at Sagres is uncertain. He definitely had a house somewhere near Sagres, where he died in November 1460.

In May 1587 the English privateer Sir Francis Drake, in the course of attacking supply lines to the Spanish Armada, captured and wrecked the fortifications around Sagres. The Ponta de Sagres was refortified after the earthquake of 1755, which had left little of verifiable antiquity standing.

Sagres has milder temperatures than other parts of the Algarve, with Atlantic winds keeping the summers cool.

Lisbon

Spread across steep hillsides that overlook the Rio Tejo, Lisbon offers all the delights you’d expect of Portugal’s star attraction, yet with half the fuss of other European capitals. Gothic cathedrals, majestic monasteries and quaint museums are all part of the colourful cityscape, but the real delights of discovery lie in wandering the narrow lanes of Lisbon’s lovely backstreets.

As bright yellow trams wind their way through curvy tree-lined streets, Lisboêtas stroll through the old quarters, much as they’ve done for centuries. Village-life gossip in old Alfama is exchanged at the public baths or over fresh bread and wine at tiny patio restaurants as fadistas (proponents of fado, Portugal’s traditional melancholic singing) perform in the background.

Meanwhile, in other parts of town, visitors and locals chase the ghosts of Pessoa in warmly lit 1930s-era cafés or walk along the seaside that once saw the celebrated return of Vasco da Gama. Yet, while history is very much alive in centuries-old Lisbon, its spirit is undeniably youthful.

Templo romano, Evora, Portugal

In the hilltop district of Bairro Alto, dozens of restaurants and bars line the narrow streets, with jazz, reggae, electronica and fado filling the air and revellers partying until dawn. Nightclubs scattered all over town make fine use of old spaces, whether on riverside docks or tucked away in 18th-century mansions.

The Lisbon experience encompasses so many things, from enjoying a fresh pastry and bica (espresso) on a petite leafy plaza to window-shopping in elegant Chiado. It’s mingling with Lisboêtas at a neighbourhood festival or watching the sunset from the old Moorish castle.

Just outside Lisbon, there’s more to explore: the magical setting of Sintra, glorious beaches and traditional fishing villages.

Porto

At the mouth of the Rio Douro, the hilly city of Porto presents a jumble of styles, eras and attitudes: narrow medieval alleyways, extravagant baroque churches, prim little squares, and wide boulevards lined with stately beaux-arts edifices.

Porto’s historic centre is the Ribeira district, a Unesco World Heritage zone of winding lanes, zigzagging staircases and tiled churches peering around every corner. Old traditions live on as tripeiros (Porto residents) mingle before old storefronts, on village-style plazas and in the old houses of commerce where Roman ruins lurk beneath the foundations. On the downside, here and in other parts of the city centre stand many dilapidated early-20th-century town houses, left to crumble as the young flee to the sprawling suburbs by the sea.

Yet despite signs of decay, in the last two decades Porto has undergone a remarkable renaissance – which is expressed in the hum of its efficient metro system and in the gleam of some ambitious urban renewal projects in other parts of town. The crowning glories of the town are the two recent masterworks, Álvaro Siza Vieira’s Museu de Arte Contemporânea and Rem Koolhaas’ Casa da Música, which have turned the city into a pilgrimage site for architecture buffs. And there are signs that an infusion of youthful vitality is returning to the centre, with the arrival of new galleries and boutiques.

Porto has also enjoyed a recent culinary renaissance, with a number of forward-leaning restaurants opening their doors in the last few years. The city regularly imports Europe’s top DJs, and on warm summer nights the riverfront can seem like one long block party – particularly in Vila Nova de Gaia (technically another city), located just across the Rio Douro from Porto itself.