Portugal & its Islands


The dramatic Algarve coast

Walk the paths of our featured corners of Portugal and you will discover tranquil slopes bathed in sunshine, carpets of spring flowers, cork forests and olive groves, sweeping beaches, lazily flowing rivers and levadas (ancient water channels), and sleepy villages of whitewashed houses adorned with intricate azulejos (tiles) depicting maritime scenes.

Grand landscapes & green islands


The misty heights of Madeira

Looking towards the Atlantic, Portugal has traditionally been a nation of great explorers, and is a country that in turn deserves to be explored itself. In the north, the grandeur of the Douro Valley is striking. Richly coloured hillsides descend steeply into the waters of the ‘river of gold’, their terraced slopes immaculately striped with rows of vines and dotted with seemingly forgotten villages of whitewashed, red-roofed houses. The same tranquillity that reigns over these idyllic landscapes can be found in the south, too, where exploration of western Algarve reveals a little-known sierra that contrasts greatly with the rugged, unspoiled coastline below. Portugal’s Atlantic islands are different again. The wealth of Madeira’s flora is extraordinary, while the levadas which water these luxuriant landscapes provide a unique network of paths that make route-finding unusually easy. Similarly, the Azores are remarkably green and lush, with scenery as dramatic as the volcanic activity that shaped it, and expanses of wild hydrangeas with large heads of deep-pink and blue flowers.

Tranquillity & timelessness


The serene Douro river

From the deeply rural landscapes of the northern mainland, to the colonial houses lining the streets of historic Funchal, capital of Madeira, there is a distinctive, almost tangible, timelessness to Portugal. This is even true of its two great cities, Lisbon and Porto, where traditional emporiums and designer boutiques stand side by side with old-fashioned shops selling port wine and the dried, salted codfish (bacalhau) that features so widely in Portuguese cuisine. Other fish such as tuna, sardines and mullet are common, too, as are tasty meat dishes such as porco a alentejana (pork with clams), and you can accompany these with Portugal’s less well-known but surprisingly good table wines: reds from the Douro Valley and the light Vinho Verde whites from the north.

Our walking holidays:

> Secret Algarve (grade 2)

> Algarve's Coast & Hills (grade 1 & 2 discovery walk)

> Valley of Gold (Douro) (grade 2)

> The Azores (grade 2 discovery walk)

> Waterways & Flowers of Madeira (grade 2)

> Madeira's Wild North (grade 2-3)

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