Author: Lynne Booker

This story is about the Indian elephant which was sent as a gift by the king of Portugal to the Pope in Rome. Hanno was one of four elephants sent

Charles Ralph Boxer led two lives, each in its own way quite remarkable. First, before WW2 in Hong Kong, he was an intelligence officer who was fluent in Japanese; second,

“Thank you, Peter, for changing my mind about Fado. The only Fado I had heard before was of the dirge kind and, like you, I was frustrated because I couldn’t

Portrait of Sir Edmund Keynton Williams Santa Ana Chapel Interior of Santa Ana Chapel, Tavira The river in Tavira is strange in that below the Roman Bridge it is known

Forte de Nossa Senhora da Rocha Forte da Ponta da Bandeira, Lagos Fortaleza da Arrifana After the Restoration of 1640, and in the face of Spanish attempts to reconquer Portugal,

The stunning Algarve scenery of tree-covered rolling hills, golden shimmering sands and a deep blue ocean has attracted many foreigners to trade, to settle or to spend their short summer

José Saramago, in his usual disparaging way, wrote a measly four lines about Castro Marim. He stopped here only to look at the beautiful archangel Gabriel in the town church,

In my previous article on Portugal’s Role in World War One, we saw how the two divisions of the CEP (Corpo Expedicionário Português) fared in the muddy, cold trenches in

It is surprising that so few foreigners know of Portugal’s involvement in World War I, in spite of the memorials in Tavira, Loulé and Lagos. As we approach the centenary

In 1487, Bartolomeu Dias rounded the stormy southern tip of Africa and named it ‘Cabo Tormentoso’. The king, with a different viewpoint, renamed it ‘Cabo da Boa Esperança’. Vasco da