Portuguese video thread

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Every portuguese has a relative that was on this war in a battlefield almost the size of Europe.

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The star of Sintra-Vila is this palace, with its iconic twin conical chimneys and lavish, whimsical interior, which is a mix of Moorish and Manueline styles, with arabesque courtyards, barley-twist columns and 15th- and 16th-century geometric azulejos that are among Portugal’s oldest.

Of Moorish origins, the palace was first expanded by Dom Dinis (1261–1325), enlarged by João I in the 15th century (when the kitchens were built), then given a Manueline twist by Manuel I in the following century.

Highlights include the octagonal Sala dos Cisnes (Swan Room), adorned with frescoes of 27 gold-collared swans, and the Sala das Pegas (Magpie Room), with its ceiling emblazoned with magpies. Lore has it that the queen caught João I kissing one of her ladies-in-waiting. The cheeky king claimed the kisses were innocent and all ‘por bem’ (‘for the good’), then commissioned one magpie for every lady-in-waiting.

Other standouts are the wooden Sala dos Brasões - european most important heraldic room - bearing the shields of 72 leading 16th-century families, the shipshape Galleon Room and the Palatine chapel featuring an Islamic mosaic floor. Finally, you reach the restored kitchen of twin-chimney fame, where you can almost hear the crackle of a hog roasting on a spit for the king.

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After the Cantabrian Wars that ended the conquest of the Iberian Peninsula, and the Pax Romana was installed, the Roman Emperor Caesar Augustus founded three cities in Northwest Hispania, Bracara Augusta, Lucus Augusti and Asturica Augusta.

Bracara Augusta was presumably founded between 16/15 BC. in the Bracari region, located between the Lima and Ave rivers.
The new Imperial City owes its name of BRACARA to the indigenous people who occupied the territory, and the epithet of AUGUSTA, in honor of the Emperor who founded it, having been the seat of the Conventus Bracarensis, inserted in the Tarraconense province.

Over the centuries, Bracara Augusta gained preponderance, even arriving in the 4th century, with Emperor Diocletian, the Capital of the new province of Galécia.
As an imperial city, it gradually developed important commercial, legal, religious, political and administrative functions, providing the emergence of various public spaces with a recreational nature.
In this sense, “Braga Romana” intends to recreate the Roman universe, in particular the daily life of the so-called Bracaraugustanos.

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One of the first major festivals of the year in Madeira, apart from the Dia dos Reis, the Madeira carnival is known as one of the best in Europe. Traditionally, there are two main carnival parades in Madeira, which are very different from each other. The allegoric parade, which takes place always on the Saturday of the Carnival weekend, is the more sophisticated one and needs a great deal of commitment and organisation from all the groups and the people involved. Numerous samba groups with thousands of participants in magnificent and colourful costumes dance to electrifying samba music through the streets of Funchal, spreading an ambiance evoking the Rio Carnival.

Traditionally the people of Madeira eat Malasadas on Terça-feira Gorda (Shrove Tuesday), the reason for making malasadas was to use up all the lard and sugar in the house, in preparation for Lent (much in the same way the tradition of Pancake Day in the UK originated on Shrove Tuesday), Malasadas are sold alongside the main carnival parade on Saturday and on the last one, the trapalhão on Terça-feira Gorda (Shrove Tuesday).

During the 19th century people from Madeira emigrated to Hawaii and took the tradition of Malasadas on Terça-feira Gorda (Shrove Tuesday) with them, now it is called Malasada Day in Hawaii.

The Brazilian Carnival could be historically traced to the period of the Portuguese Age of Discoveries when their caravels passed regularly through Madeira, a territory which already celebrated emphatically its carnival season, and where they were loaded with goods but also people and their ludic and cultural expressions who then lend them to what would become the biggest cultural manifestation in modern Brazil.

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"Hymn of the Autonomous Region of Madeira"
Portuguese / English translation

The portuguese excel at their anthems.

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The Hymn of the Azores (Portuguese: Hino dos Açores) is an unofficial regional anthem used during some ceremonies in the Portuguese autonomous region of the Azores.

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The Azores taught me to admire the moment of Genesis and the creation of life.

You can touch the clouds, dive 3m and be surrounded by sea life, walk dormant volcanoes...Many times I found myself just gazing at Mother Nature, admiring her beautiful work.

I guess what I am trying to say is that "There is life before, and life after visiting the Azores..."