Continental divide

By EWAN McDONALD

Westies, you could call them. Clinging to their mountainous, green, strip of earth, pounded by Atlantic surf on one side, friendlier and more fertile and more cultivated territories commandeered by nations far inland, the Portuguese are the Coasters of Europe.

Similarities don't stop with the superficial. Visiting this nation on the edge of Europe, beside the ocean that its sailors conquered to become one of the great colonisers (in an era when that was politically correct) can be a voyage back in time. If, in many places, it seems like nothing much changed between the 20s and the millennium, it's because nothing did. There are pockets of poverty to shock New Zealand visitors more familiar with the style of London or Paris.

It's only a few hours on the bus from Salamanca or Seville in Spain to Lisbon or Porto, but the differences are deeper than learning to say "Obrigado" instead of "Gracias", "Bom dia" not "Buenos dias", to order port not sherry, to check the results for Benfica rather than Barca.

Outside the graceful centre of Lisbon, you won't find the cosmopolitan buzz of the great European cities. What you will find is a charm, honesty and lack of pretension that you won't encounter on Oxford St or the Champs Elysees.

Like many New Zealanders, we decided that we'd "do" Spain and Portugal together.

Geography makes it sensible. We hadn't bargained on history, and found when we got to Spain that several centuries of maritime and marketing rivalry mean that it can be quite tricky to travel from one to the other.

Borders might be coming down all over Europe but no one has told the train and bus companies. Most Spanish cities near the border have one train a day to the neighbours, and it goes through town at 3.30 or 4am. Buses are slightly more frequent and you will see a lot of the ever-changing scenery on the four- or six-hour trip. On one "express" coach we saw a lot of it through an open flap in the floor. Well, they'd promised air-conditioning. (While we're talking about transport, stick to buses and trains rather than hiring a car: Portugal has the worst record of fatal road crashes in Europe.)

Even while you're asleep, your euro goes further here. A four-star hotel room, air-conditioned, minibar, satellite TV, on Lisbon's main square, the Rossio, cost the same as a bed with pay shower and toilet one floor down in Paris. Same when you're eating: dinner for two, a couple of courses, wine and coffee, less than $40. Outside Lisbon, even in Porto, the second-largest city, prices tumble. Bargains in the shops, too, especially leather shoes and bags and intricately patterned or stitched bed and table linen from former colonies.

Conservative, reserved, taciturn ... this is how Portuguese may appear, due in part, perhaps, to the impenetrable language, which has far too many x's and q's and has been described as "Spanish spoken by a drunken French sailor". (Or was it the other way around?) Take a phrasebook, particularly to the restaurant. Make an effort at one-on-one communication: you will be rewarded with help, smiles and, occasionally, a handshake.

Yes, there are upmarket, deluxe, stylish restaurants in Lisbon and possibly one or two outside the capital. Do not even think about eating there. What this country does well is straightforward rustic cooking in unpretentious workers' cafes. Follow the guys in blue overalls and you won't be disappointed.

Portugal is a land of a thousand cod dishes and stick-to-the ribs soups of bread or kale and potatoes (caldo verde). Simply grilled fish and meat are on every menu (what these people don't know about grilling small fish is not worth knowing). So are stuffed crab, roast suckling-pig, feijoada (beans, pork and sausage stew) or shellfish cooked in white wine, garlic and cilantro. And the egg-based flans for dessert ...

A couple of customs: each meal arrives on an individual pewter platter; take the food off the platter and put it on the plate. Each meal comes with chips, salad, rice and grated carrot. As in Spain, don't expect to eat earlier than 9pm.

Rush hour is from 5 to 5.30 every night - but we're not talking about the traffic. This is when every Portuguese considers it a national duty to congregate at the pastelaria (cake shop) and wolf down gorgeous cream, egg and sugar combinations in a massive sugar jolt. About six caffeine hits and calories running off the scale are the usual requirements to keep the body going until the grilled sardines at 9.30.

In so many places in Europe, it can be difficult to recall which country you're in today because the villages and the cathedrals and the castles look so much the same.

Not in Portugal: thanks to early contacts with the Moors, the art of azulejo - decorative tiling - has flourished for more than five centuries. Not just where we put tiles these days, on walls and floors, but as part of the architecture, on outside walls of houses, shops, cathedrals, palaces. Some of the finest tell the nation's story, like a ceramic tapestry in the entrance hall to Porto's railway station. The craft is not lost: the Government sponsors modern artists to tile exuberant ornaments in Lisbon and Porto's new metro stations.

Exuberant? Yes, as exuberant as Portugal seems to want to be. For there seems to be an underlying melancholy to the national character, perhaps best expressed in the bluesy lament of its national folk music, fado.

This is a country still struggling to find its place in modern Europe; a nation that was once a superpower, was conquered by Spain and Napoleon and slipped into decay; to which the dictator Salazar bequeathed only backwardness, poverty and chaos.

Entry to the euro union has brought change. In the countryside, people have walked away from farms and factories and villages, gone to find a living in Lisbon. A woman and her five children, in rags, filthy, scrabble for coins and scraps from rubbish bins on a rail platform.

Yet, 200m up the line, the European Union is building another motorway or stadium for the European championships, to be hosted by this soccer-crazed nation next year. Bread or circuses?

So that was how we saw Portugal: charming, honest, unpretentious, a touch of melancholia, a little nation on the edge of a bigger world, doing its best to give its people the life they want. Sound a little like somewhere else you know? Perhaps that's why we remember our stay with such affection.

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A trail of three cities

Lisbon

Laidback, lower and slower than other European capitals, Lisbon has many faces. Crumbling buildings decorated with faded tiles, clanking yellow trams that crawl steep hillsides and writhe through narrow alleys, past washing hanging from iron balconies, old women in black shawls selling fish from a hole in the wall, dark fado from a darker bar, dominated by the castle old Lisbon lives in the working-class Alfama district. Young Lisbon lives at the waterside and in the chic Bairro Alto; the nightclubs, restaurants and apartments of a Viaduct Harbour; or the gentrified, bohemian Ponsonby of galleries, boutiques, hip little cafes. Downtown is elegant Rossio square with its "moving pavement" of wave-patterned cobblestones, turn-of-the-century coffee and cake houses, discreet and genteel in the Baixa shopping district.

There are two must-sees just outside the city. Belm, a 15-minute tram ride, is where Vasco da Gama set sail and Portugal's maritime glory is enshrined in the chessman-like tower, a soaring monument to the discoverers, and immense, grandiose Jeronimos monastery. About 45 minutes on a suburban train, Sintra was royalty's summer retreat for royalty. The leafy, mountain town has three palaces, notably the eccentric Palcio da Pena, proof that nothing exceeds like success.

Porto

First, it's Porto and not Oporto. Only foreigners use the opening vowel. Second, it is largely about port - so go for it. Go down to the Douro, the "River of Gold" from where the 3000-year-old city's grimy buildings and cramped streets begin their climb up steep riverbanks. On the south is Vila Nova de Gaia, the world's port capital, with wooden sailing boats or barcos lining the shores; above are the lodges of Sandeman, Barros, Graham, Cockburn, offering tours, tasting and purchasing. Cityside is Ribeira, working quays where crowds pack into bars and eat in restaurants set into arches of old warehouses. Up the hill winds the city, grey, stony, workmanlike, surprising with flashes of faded elegance and, occasionally, contemporary style as it's rebuilt for the 21st century.

Coimbra

Nothing is quite what it seems in this ancient capital. That church on the main square: inside is the city's most elegant caf, tables in the nave, bar where the altar might have been. That dead-end alley: turn the corner and a chaotic, tangled, rabbit-warren of shops, restaurants, plazas, apartments unfolds. Those folk packing up their stalls on another square, their day's trading done: tonight there will be a fiesta, drawing hundreds from around the district to sip port, eat grills, watch centuries-old dances, and these Saturday traders will be stars. Struggle up the hill, past crumbling buildings clinging to the rocks, and be rewarded with the sights, treasures and 13th-century ceremonies of one of Europe's oldest universities - and a panoramic view of central Portugal, across the broad Mondego River

Case Notes

When to go

Portugal has extreme weather: summer can be searing, winter can be bleak. It is one of Europe's playgrounds and Lisbon, Porto and the Algarve will be packed from June to early September. We recommend late March-April or late September-early October to enjoy fewer crowds, milder weather, cheaper accommodation.

How to get there

For Kiwis, it's practical to tour Spain and Portugal together, though there are flights to Lisbon or Porto from most UK/European airports. From many Spanish cities near the border, there's only one train each day to Portugal. Inter-city buses may be more frequent. Salamanca-Porto, $35, four hours; Seville-Lisbon, $55, 5 1/2 hours.

What it'll cost

Three-star hotel, Porto $70

Dinner for two, wine and coffee, Porto $38.95

Train, Porto-Coimbra-Lisbon $35

B&B, country town $48.75

Dinner for two, wine and coffee, country town $38.95

Four-star hotel, Lisbon $282.50

Dinner for two, wine and coffee, Lisbon $48.75