Culture in Portugal

“When we find a good guide, we try and work with them repeatedly. Especially as many of the people on our trips have travelled with us before, so they know what to expect from our team.”

Ashley Blake is the founder of our partner Traverse Journeys, a female-led company creating immersive cultural tours across Portugal and beyond. She’s talking about the importance of working with guides who actually live in the places they’re showing people around.

“In Portugal we have Marta, who is an unlimited well of information. She’s super fun, she knows all the cool spots, and she’s an awesome driver which is really helpful on the streets of Lisbon! She’s not just telling you about Portugal’s history and culture; she’ll talk about her family, her favourite foods, so you really feel you’re getting to know about a Portuguese person’s life.”

But a good guide needs to know where they’re going each day; they can’t just set off and wing it. And where’s the fun in just marching off ahead, holding an umbrella aloft?

“We try and balance the experiences in our tours, so you’re not just getting a blur of sights,” says Ashley. “I think textured is the word I would use. You can only capture so much, so we try and weave in other aspects, from food tastings to hikes in nature, interactive hands-on stuff, and simply getting to know people.”

Seeing Portugal from a local’s perspective, slowing things down and allowing for respectful, meaningful engagement and cultural exchange with the people who live in the place you’re visiting – if you could distil responsible travel to its very essence, it would look remarkably close to this.

Isabel Chaves is a native of Porto, and a tour leader for our partner Be Local Explorers, showing visitors around her home city but also the historic towns and countryside of the wider area, including places that often see comparatively little tourism. “When we ask our guests for their feedback, one constant we always get that is they like getting to know areas that are not touristy at all,” says Isabel. “Often the highlight is just seeing how people live, their homes. When we go to Miramar, it’s lovely but it’s purely residential. But people love it there.”

Outside A Brasileira, a bustling café in central Lisbon, tourists perch for a photo on the knee of a bronze sculpture. This is Fernado Pessoa, a giant of Portuguese poetry, literature and philosophy, and a regular customer of A Brasileira in the early 20th century. One could argue, however, that the effigy is not simply a tribute to Pessoa, but to Portuguese café culture as well.

Coffee is a big thing in Portugal at any time of day, not just over breakfast standing at the counter with a pastry, or after lunch. There are pavement cafés everywhere, the perfect opportunity to quietly observe and get a feel for day-to-day life in Portugal. Some, particularly those of Lisbon, are situated close to famous miradouros (viewpoints) while others are populated by local people enjoying a glass of cherry liqueur, a pastry or a bitter espresso before continuing on with their journeys. Pull up a chair, ask for ‘um café’ and perhaps give a nod to the person at the next table.

In Lisbon there are plenty of fado venues that aren’t thronged with tourists of an evening. Your best bet to seek out a truly authentic performance is to eschew the guidebooks and ask a local. As many Portugal cultural tours are led by guides who live in the communities they’re showing you around, they can often be trusted to come up with some good recommendations. Our tip: go out late at night, after the fadistas have finished with their tourist engagements and congregate in bars.

“I think Porto offers a great mix of everything,” says Isabel Chaves. “The historic center doesn’t feel big, but it has a lot to see, from churches to museums and old neighbourhoods.”

Porto’s Lamego Cathedral, with its Romanesque and Gothic architecture, was founded in 1175 but its origins date back as far as 572. The merchants’ houses and riverside warehouses make for another very atmospheric wander in the city. And the São Bento train station, which many travelers arrive at, is renowned for its stunning azulejo tile murals.

Among its countless treasures, Lisbon boasts the Moorish Alfama neighbourhood. Take the rickety yellow tram to the São Jorge Castle, then meander down through winding streets where people shout greetings across to each other while hanging the washing out on their balconies. Just outside the capital lies the summer royal retreat of Sintra which our partners, aware of how busy it gets, aim to visit as early in the day as possible.

“We cut Sintra out of the itinerary one year,” says Ashley, “but we got complaints, so we put it back in! It is crowded, though, even if you arrive early, so somewhere we like to go to escape for a while is the nearby Quinta de Regaleira. It’s the former manor of a sugar baron, a bit less on-the-radar, and there are these fascinating tunnels and sculptures and wells.”

But exploring Portugal culture properly sometimes means leaving the well-known locations behind altogether. Day trips from Lisbon, Sintra and Porto abound. You might pause in Alcoba, a handsome medieval town in central Portugal and home to one of the most outstanding monasteries in Iberia, or hillside Coimbra, the former capital and a prestigious university city with a magnificent 18th-century library you can visit.

Óbidos is a small fortified town, its whitewashed houses, medieval walls and cobbled streets beautifully preserved by local residents. Aveiro is sometimes described as ‘Portugal’s Venice’ for its lovely canals. Nazaré has a well-attended fish market but is famous for its immense waves – this is ground zero for Portuguese surfing culture. Guimarães was the home of the first king of Portugal and, like Braga and Matosinhos, is an easy drive from Porto.

You might get around in a private minivan, driven by your tour leader. But some trips purposefully use public transport like buses and trains to get from A to B. Journeying alongside local people as they head to work, to market or to the beach is another fantastic way to absorb the culture of Portugal.

Ashley Blake points out that while the food is often a highlight of traveling in Portugal, the dining schedule in Portugal can pose challenges: “You won’t have any luck finding lunch as early as midday!”

Which is why we’d recommend a light breakfast and grazing throughout the day. Market stalls sell everything from traditional sweets like pasteis de nata (custard tarts) and ovos moles (sweet egg-filled pastries) to grilled sardines (especially around feast days), cups of octopus ceviche, or chicken feet. Francesinha is a heavy meaty sandwich draped in grilled cheese, in a beery sauce, and a reputed hangover cure. It’s certainly a cure for hunger.

Petiscarias are snack bars selling the Portuguese equivalent of tapas with a drink. Some restaurants specialise in in meat dishes, such as black pork, a speciality of the Alentejo region, or leitão (suckling pig).

As an alternative to wine-tasting experiences, a Portugal cultural tour might also stop at a locally owned ginja distillery, such as the one between Evora and Óbidos. Here, you can learn how these sour cherries are grown, harvested and processed into the traditional liqueur, and the profits from any purchases remain in this agricultural community.

Ashley Blake’s Traverse Journeys works with a collective in Lisbon called Yes You Can Spray that aims to connect national and international street artists, and encourage self-expression. They arrange for their groups to take guided walks around the city, not just to see the work and learn about the people behind it, but also about the social issues both current and historic that the works reflect. Certain pieces chronicle how society has progressed from the post-dictatorship years of the 1970s and 1980s to the modern day.

“I guess in Lisbon what surprises people is that what’s on the walls is not just graffiti, there’s so much more to the story,” says Ashley. “Like music, street art has always been a really constructive and powerful way for young people to express themselves and their views.”

But if you’re imagining messy walls of overlaying tags, and half-hearted Banksy tributes, then you’re very wide of the mark. You can admire some truly epic works of art in the Portuguese capital. Prominent artists include the internationally acclaimed Vhils, who carves huge portraits into building façades, such as one of the fado diva Amália Rodrigues which incorporates the traditional Portuguese cobbles. Notable works you might catch sight of while wandering around Lisbon celebrate towering figures of Portuguese literature and heroes of the 25 April Revolution, or make bold political statements. Others seem to pop out from the walls, such as the vast 3D murals that the well-known Bordalo II crafts from rubbish.