The Queen and The Pauper

Arguably, English gardens and tricentennial bookstores/libraries attract people because humans as a species have a collective need to belong. Our ever changing but always precarious world turns individual lives into "candles in the wind", too fragile to survive, too easy to extinguish. Being part of something much bigger than themselves helps individuals to feel more protected - at least, to a degree. By creating a sense of continuity, history achieves just that - and that's why each and every country honours and celebrates its history (even if not necessarily every moment of it). Portugal is no exception - and yet, it's rather unique because no country's history is so interwoven with, and reflected in, its geography as Portugal's.

From a small Roman settlement in the north-western part of the Iberian peninsula to a huge, the-sun-never-sets-on-it Empire trading in four continents and, as a result of it, drowning in riches, to a much reduced in size longest in Europe totalitarian dictatorship desperately clinging to the remnants of its colonies - only to willingly give up on them right after establishing itself as a democratic country within its current borders. Home to one of only four remarkable locations in Europe, Portugal has also seen and incorporated almost every culture on Earth, and lived through many paradoxes - such as, for instance, its most cruel, inhumane laws resulting in one of its biggest and foundational cultural assets that has since then peacefully reconquered its former colonies. While many national flags are symbolic, and some of them reflect an important event in their nation's history, be it real or imaginary, Portuguese flag went much farther than that. It was designed as a living and breathing, proudly soaring history book riddled with both symbols and practical references spanning more than six centuries of glory associated with military prowess, innovation and territorial expansion. The latter is never noble because it's inevitably tantamount to cruelty, violence and bloodshed - and Portuguese history is tainted, among some other transgressions, by slave trading. However, Portugal is one of very nations on Earth able to attach a silver lining to the infamous deeds of its past - and that lining is mentioned in the country's national anthem: "...and your victorious arm gave new worlds to the World! ("e teu braco vencedor deu mundos novos ao Mundo!"). The country that owes its very name to the ocean ( the "portus cale", a Latin-Celtic blend meaning simply "port" in either language, had over time smoothly transformed itself into "Portugal") predictably lives and dies by the ocean - starting with seafood, and ending with a pattern pervading its cities' streets and squares,

with everything else in-between. That highly successful symbiotic relationship started around the middle of the 15th century in the fishing village of Belem...