When I was invited to write this book some years ago, circumstances prevented me from accepting. I feared that arthritis would stop my travels. I first visited Portugal in May 1936 as a graduate working in Spain, but the outbreak of civil war obliged me to come home. Cambridge then kindly made an award, intended for study in Spain, available in Portugal. My wife and I went to Coimbra, and I was made headmaster of the English school near Lisbon. We returned to England in November 1942, and my earliest history of Portugal appeared in 1947; this will explain why my interest was originally historical. I see Portugal and the Portuguese as they emerge from their past. If I qualify as a tourist, it is because I have returned almost every year for one or more visits.

I am indebted to many friends – some of them not known to me by name. But they include the late Susan Lowndes, who with her husband Luiz Marques founded the Anglo-Portuguese News. She knew Portugal well and published her Selective Traveller in 1949. Dr Paul Lowndes Marques has given me valuable help with the illustrations, selected by him with the help of Dr George Winius, and I am glad to record my thanks for the kindness of the Portuguese tourist authorities. I must also mention Dr Carlos Estorninho of Lisbon and Figueira da Foz, as well as Dr A J Miranda of Santo Tirso and his family, who have afforded me hospitality and driven me round the Minho. On the one occasion, Dr Winius both drove and pushed me round the Alentejo and Algarve. I had not thought it feasible to visit Portugal in a wheel-chair until TAP, the Portuguese airline, and George and Grace made it possible. In London, Mr António de Figueiredo has helped on many occasions and lent me books I did not possess, and Mrs Andrea White has undertaken the formidable task of making sense of my script. None of these is to blame for such errors as I may have made.

I have inserted one or two poems, which strike a nostalgic note: Saudade, the yearning for people and places no longer present, is often thought to be characteristic of Portugal.

The author and publishers would like to record their gratitude to the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation for assistance with the publication costs of this book.