Portugal - res11

If you are going to live in or visit Portugal, please take the time to tell our Embassy or Consulate about your trip. If you check in, we can keep you up to date with important safety and security announcements. It will also help your friends and family get in touch with you in an emergency. Bridges and port wine are what characterises Oporto, Portugal's gracious northern capital and second largest city after Lisbon. The main reason tourists or travellers visit Oporto is to sample its legendary port wine, processed, blended and aged in the various lodges of the Vila Nova de Gaia and is located magnificently on the banks of the great Douro River. As you travel through Portugal, the use of a few Portuguese words and phrases (such as greetings, the essentials of getting a room ordering a meal, catching a bus or train, timetable basics, ‘please’, ‘thank you’, ‘yes’ and ‘no’) can transform people’s willingness to welcome and help you. When the Romans swept into southern Portugal in 210 BC, they expected an easy victory. But they hadn’t reckoned on the Lusitani, a Celtic warrior tribe based between the Rio Tejo and Rio Douro that resisted ferociously for half a century. 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. Portugal was occupied by several Germanic peoples, mainly the Suevi and the Visigoths. In the early 8th century Muslim Moors conquered those Christian kingdoms, occupying most of the Iberian Peninsula.