Known as the national song - and since 2011 Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, declared by UNESCO - fado is a solo song accompanied by a music played by viola, a bass and a Portuguese guitar in acoustic.

The lyrics of traditional fado - as today in rap or hip hop - reflect on the reality of everyday life and there is today in Portugal a great collaboration between artists of both origins.

The best places to hear new and old fado singers are the 'nocturnal' fado houses.

June is the month of the main popular festivals, although between May and October there is always a popular festival in some village in Portugal.

Each festival has its own saint: June 13 is the feast of Santo António in Lisbon, June 24, the feast of São João in Porto. But there are also the festivals of St. Peter, or the pilgrimage of Senhora da Agonia, further north.

In short, on a popular festival day there are arraias, sardines and marches and parades; you eat, drink a lot, dance, play and there is no time to end the revelry.

Rare is the tourist who visits Lisbon and does not want to visit the Tile Museum, one of the rarest in the world. The tradition of tiling dates back to the Islamic presence in the Iberian Peninsula and, in Portugal, this art was especially cultivated between the 15th and 19th centuries.

Lisbon is the city of tiles, you can visit old factories or enjoy more contemporary tile murals throughout the city.

From the heyday of tile production, there are also murals of landscapes or historical episodes, in the decoration of churches, palaces and gardens, covering walls or facades, and more recently in the subway stations.

Like the tile, the sidewalk dates back to the 15th century, when maritime expansion began.

The first paths were paved with granite stones. This paving was the solution found to make the floors more regular and faster for the transportation of goods, at a time of great economic activity, namely through the ports.

In the 19th century, the Portuguese cobblestone, ornamental and unique in the world, was developed by prisoners allocated to this type of work, then based on a set of irregular white and black limestone stones. Today, the art of cobbling is on the verge of extinction.

The tradition of academic or student tunas dates back to the 19th century and spread from Spain, with a revival in Portugal in the 1980s.

These tunas are groups of students who sing and dance, dressed in black with the traditional academic costumes, accompanied by stringed instruments and with banners of the institution to which they belong. Their musical repertoires range from classical to more popular.

The MAAT - Museum of Art Technology and Architecture is an emblematic piece of 21st century Lisbon, designed by the London-based architecture studio AL_A (Amanda Levete Architects).

Inaugurated in 2016, this museum is located in the riverside area of Belém next to another monumental building: the old Thermoelectric Power Plant that supplied the capital, built in 1908.

Both present exhibitions and maintain their own programming.

The Royal Monastery of Santa Maria de Belém, commonly known as the Jerónimos Monastery, is a masterpiece of Portuguese architecture in the Manueline style.

It has been classified as a National Monument since 1907 and inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1983.

Its construction in the 16th century brought architects and sculptors from all over Europe to Lisbon. Today the complex includes the Church, the Navy Museum and the Archaeology Museum.

The Belém Tower was built in the 16th century by King Manuel to protect the Tagus bar, but also the Jerónimos Monastery, then under construction.

At the time, the configuration of the river provided proximity and visual connection between the two developments - the Tower was built in the middle of the river, 250 meters from the bank, while the monastery was built on the bank facing the then Restelo beach.

Morphological changes and time gave them their current configuration in the western riverside network.

Built in the sixties of the 20th century, it is a suspension bridge similar to the São Francisco bridge, and was the first fixed structure link between Lisbon and Almada, the neighboring city on the south bank.

Until then, only cacilheiros were used to cross the Tagus River. The bridge was inaugurated in 1966 only as a road link and already in the 21st century it also received the train line.

This imposing 18th century engineering feat was only decommissioned in 1973. From the source in Caneças to the Mãe de Água deposit in Amoreiras in Lisbon.

With other secondary aqueducts it formed a 59 km distribution network. The project was designed by António Cannevari, Manuel da Maia and Carlos Mardel. The Alcântara Valley section consists of 35 arches, and includes the largest spanning stone arch in the world (65 mts high x 32 mts wide).

The Cathedral, now a Catholic cathedral, is a complex of historic buildings that has been under intervention for several years. The building dates back two thousand years.

Many centuries ago, this area was one of the gates to the city of Olisipo, inhabited by numerous peoples.

Almost all of them chose this site to build their main temples, so there are traces of a mosque and a sacred Roman temple beneath the structures of the present church.

A public elevator, today also a tourist attraction, this equipment allows you to go up from downtown to Chiado and Bairro Alto. Its design and materials are reminiscent of the Eiffel Tower, which is justified by the fact that it was designed by a colleague of the French architect.

The elevator began operating in 1902, then still steam-powered, and is only 45 meters high allowing a good view over the historic part of Lisbon and the Tagus. The Portuguese capital has three other historic public elevators operating between hills.

92 212 square kilometers is the area of Portugal. It includes 850 km of beaches bathed by the Atlantic Ocean.

Mainland Portugal has the oldest land border, with Spain, of 1214 km, known as "raia".

The country also has sovereignty over two archipelagos in the Atlantic Ocean - the Azores with nine inhabited islands and Madeira, further south, with two inhabited islands.

Here, near Portinho da Arrábida, in summer with limited access, you will find many paradisiacal beaches, including Figueirinha and Galapos.

The Portinho cove offers the calmest sea in Portugal, protected by a preserved natural heritage.

Families of wild boar can often be seen on the cliffs of the mountain and groups of dolphins in the sea.

At 140 meters above the Atlantic Ocean lies Cape Roca - the westernmost point of continental Europe.

Located about 40 kms west of Lisbon, the place has a lighthouse and a fabulous landscape, receiving daily excursions of tourists.

Those who know it will probably never forget the westernmost sunset.

Place of palaces and surrounded by a singular microclimate, which give it a unique charm, full of green of the mountains and blue of the nearby beaches (Adraga, Maças, Praia Grande or Azenhas).

Lisbon is half an hour by train to the original village.

Worth visiting are the Palace of Pena, Seteais, the Palace of Monserrate, Quinta da Regaleira, among others.

A kind of sandwich with pork steak, served on carcass bread - an individual and popular type of bread - which is served with plenty of sauce.

It went international when Anthony Bourdain, the New York food critic, enjoyed a bifana and featured it on his show.

It occupies the space before hamburgers in the national fast food space, although the meat is not minced. The beef version is called prego.

There are dozens of places to eat crustaceans and molluscs, which are always fresh and almost natural, a characteristic that distinguishes Portuguese seafood from others.

Caught on the coast or imported, seafood brings together a panoply of identities - spider crab, crab, lobster, razor clams, crab, barnacles - that radiate the flavor of the sea.

As a snack or meal, with beer or chilled white wine, seafood is for celebrating with friends.

A simple dish whose secret lies in the mix of ingredients being cooked and, of course, their quality.

It combines meat sausages of various origins, pieces of beef, pork (salted) and chicken, carrots, potatoes, turnip, various cabbages and beans, and can be accompanied by white rice.

Everything cooks in its own time, each ingredient gaining the flavor of the whole.

... cooked with everyone, à Brás, roasted with potatoes, with cream, à Gomes de Sá, in pastries, pataniscas, à Margarida da Praça, à minhota, ... there are as many ways of cooking cod (salted dry and possibly frozen) as you want.

For several decades, the Portuguese cooked and ate it, as they also fished it in the North Seas.

The price of the fish has risen and today most of the cod consumed in Portugal is Norwegian. But the art of transforming this fish and making it interesting, in "a thousand ways", will always be Portuguese.

Between the months of May and August inclusive (months without r) sardines are caught for the consolation of the Portuguese who love "sardinhadas".

The small fish, once of almost no commercial value, is roasted over charcoal with just salt and served with boiled potatoes and roasted bell pepper salad - or eaten on slices of bread.

The sardine is queen at popular festivals.

The most international of Portuguese sweets is a small pastry made from puff pastry and cream, but the original recipe created, it is believed, by the monks of the Jerónimos monastery, remains secret.

Near the Monastery there is the house of Pasteis de Belém, where dozens of tourists queue every day to taste those that are said to be the heirs of the recipe of convent sweets, hundreds of years ago.

Each region has its own (conventual sweets) because convents have spread across the national territory for centuries.

And all convent sweets, the art of monks and nuns, have in common eggs and sugar, varying in the other ingredients they integrate: almond, orange, cinnamon, Port wine.

The names of convent sweets speak for themselves: papos de anjo, barrigas de freira, toucinho do céu, abadessas, garganta de freira, doce do paraíso...