Collage: a navigator with a spyglass sticking out his tongue, caravels, Belém Tower, a yellow tram and a king in sunglasses, under the title Portugal

Portugal — History as it really was(with a smile)

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From the Lusitanians to today. Real people, incredible feats, mischief, epic moments and a few… questionable decisions. A true journey through the history of Portugal, told lightly and with surprises.

Episodes

a new one every week
Lanhoso castle — the rock where, tradition says, he locked her up
Engraving from a photo by Joseolgon, Wikimedia Commons, public domain
Episode I1128

Can you believe the kid went to war against his own mother?

Summer 1128. A field near Guimarães. A nineteen-year-old on one side, his mother on the other, and a country nobody expected to exist.

→ read, 8 min
The Battle of Diu as imagined in 1840, more than three centuries later
Lithograph by M. J. do Carmo Sendim, 1840 · Wikimedia Commons, public domain
Episode II1509

The viceroy who wouldn't go home until he'd avenged his son

A son killed at Chaul, a threat written in poultry, and eighteen ships against more than a hundred. The Indian Ocean, February 1509.

→ read, 9 min
The gate of Lanhoso castle
Engraving from a photo by Pedro from Maia, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0 (adapted)
Episode IIIc. 1300

The lord who locked the doors and set fire to his own castle

A wife, an abbot, a rock the size of a hill, and what a medieval lord could do inside his own walls.

coming soon
Then · 1509

A father sails up the coast of India to avenge his son — and, along the way, Portugal ends up running the Indian Ocean's sea lanes for the best part of a century.

Now · 2026

Almeida told the king that whoever ruled the sea would have India. Five hundred years on, Portugal still matters for what passes its door by sea: the EllaLink cable comes ashore at Sines from Brazil, Google's Equiano at Sesimbra from Africa. It isn't spices any more. It's data. Same principle.

Same history. Different point of view.

Everyone likes Portugal. Almost nobody knows its story. The sites that tell it are encyclopaedias or tourist brochures. This is the story told by someone who lives in it — with the facts checked against the historians, and when it is legend rather than record, we say so.

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