19 Best Books About Portugal For Travelers in 2024 (All Genres)

Exploring online book stores, buying, and delving into books about Portugal, its dramatic history, and culture can be a time-consuming journey.

But where do you start if you’re organizing a trip and wish to acquire at least a basic comprehension of this beautiful country?

Here’s my selection of the top 19 books about Portugal for any traveler, whether you are a first-time visitor or a seasoned guru.

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Key takeaways

• Best Travel Guides: Rick Steves Portugal (click to scroll) and Lonely Planet Portugal (scroll)
• Best Foodie’s Guide: Portugal: The Cookbook (scroll)
• Best books about Portugal history: Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire (scroll)
• Learning Portuguese: Easy Portuguese Phrase Book (scroll)
• Best Fiction: The Rain in Portugal: Poems (scroll)

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To fully benefit from the guide, it’s essential to read through the entire book, which features helpful maps, a pull-out color planning map, and a selection of color and black & white photographs.

Overall, I highly recommend this guide for enterprising travelers seeking a thoughtful and detailed approach to planning their Portugal visit.

This guide helped me plan my trip to Portugal and was mostly reliable, providing fantastic hotel and restaurant recommendations like Hotel do Chiado and Sea Me Next Door.

However, there were a few instances where the descriptions of certain restaurants or towns didn’t live up to expectations. Additionally, I found the e-version of the book to be frustrating, as it didn’t allow for easy navigation, had issues with downloading parts of the book, and featured maps that were difficult to read.

My complaints are more about the format than the content, so I would recommend the print version of Lonely Planet’s “Portugal” for a better experience.

Overall, quite an informative book, but not exceptional compared to other travel guides available. While it does provide useful information and local insight, there is nothing outstanding that sets it apart. If you’re looking for a reliable, informative guide to Portugal, this book may still be helpful, but consider exploring other options as well for a more comprehensive experience.

Yes, I also recognize that guidebooks like this may be outdated when it comes to fluid information like hospitality, as online resources like Yelp and TripAdvisor offer more immediate updates. While the usefulness of printed guides may decrease over time, replaced by web-based alternatives, for now, I still enjoy bringing my Lonely Planet guide along on my trips for its reliable advice on cultural and historical experiences.

The book is insightful and informative, providing a deeper understanding of the country’s customs and traditions. The guide not only offers a glimpse into the charming, romantic, and nostalgic aspects of Portugal but also equips you with tips on etiquette and communication to navigate unfamiliar situations.

Overall, it’s an enjoyable read that enriches your experience in Portugal by enabling you to blend in and make the most of your visit. Bravo to the author!

The book, written by an experienced expat, discusses the thriving expat community in Portugal and the country’s easy citizenship process. It provides helpful tips and tricks for settling in and avoiding common pitfalls, along with a mini history lesson to help you appreciate the country’s ancient sites and heritage. With its light tone and easy-to-read style, this comprehensive guide is an essential resource for anyone looking to make a smooth transition to life in Portugal.

Along with ingredient substitutions for hard-to-find items, the book also offers insights into Portuguese wines, pairing suggestions, and regional specialties.

Ideal for family dinners and parties, this cookbook is highly recommended for anyone looking to learn and enjoy homestyle Portuguese dishes.

The author highlights rural dishes, which may feature blood and offal, offering a fascinating insight into the country’s ancient food traditions.

One example of a preserved medieval dish in the book is an original version of blancmange, made with chicken breast meat. The dessert section is particularly impressive, showcasing a variety of Portuguese convent sweets made primarily from egg yolks, sugar, and almonds.

Though the book is extensive and includes some recipes that might not be commonly prepared today, it provides a deep understanding of traditional Portuguese home cooking.

As a reader, you will probably appreciated the author’s use of primary texts and first-hand accounts, which make the story more engaging and bring the characters to life.

However, I felt that the book lacked a macro view of the history, particularly in terms of economics and trade flows. Despite this, the text effectively captures the spirit of the times and delves deep into the mindsets of the historical actors, making it an immersive and often riveting read. Overall, I would recommend this book for its character-driven storytelling and insights into the horrors, tactics, and motivations of the era.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, as it offers a wealth of information in a compact format. It covers the nation’s early settlers, Roman influences, and the role of influential families in shaping Europe’s geopolitics. This book is perfect for history buffs or those curious about Portugal’s language, people, and culture. It also serves as a great resource for travelers who wish to learn about the history of countries they plan to visit.

I highly recommend this informative and easy-to-read book and look forward to exploring the author’s other works.

The book focuses on the elements of ancient Portugal that persist today, examining the nation in its current period of rapid transition and growth. Although the writing is dense and not a typical history book, this free-flow narrative is a labor of love by one of Portugal’s most respected contemporary writers, offering readers a passionate and insightful look at the country.

The book is recommended for anyone trying to learn Portuguese who is unsure where to begin. Although not perfect, with some phrases possibly not used by natives as described, the book remains a useful resource for learning everyday Portuguese and improving communication with Portuguese-speaking friends, colleagues, and clients.

Other books on learning Portuguese

• Learn Portuguese: A Simple Guide to Learning Portuguese for Beginners (See on Amazon)
• Lonely Planet Portuguese Phrasebook & Dictionary (See on Amazon)
• The Language Lover’s Guide to Learning Portuguese (See on Amazon)
• Conversational Portuguese Quick and Easy: The Most Innovative Technique to Learn the Brazilian Portuguese Language (See on Amazon)

The book features over fifty new poems, showcasing Collins’s generosity, wit, and imaginative play, earning him the title of “America’s favorite poet” by The Wall Street Journal. The poems explore various subjects such as travel, art, cats and dogs, loneliness, love, beauty, and death, with tones ranging from whimsical to elegiac.

Collins is known for his ability to contemplate everyday subjects, making the collection entertaining, engaging, and enlightening. Readers have praised “The Rain in Portugal” for leaving them satisfied, noting Collins’s delightful storytelling and his talent for eliciting sly smiles with his sarcasm and truth-telling. The book is perfect for both long-time fans and new readers seeking an introduction to Collins’s work.

Martel’s writing is praised for its ability to illuminate various places in history and aspects of life, such as early motorcars and the human-animal relationship. However, the novel may not cohere sufficiently for some readers, with certain parts appearing out of focus or irrelevant. Despite these shortcomings, the book still receives solid rating for its overall quality and Martel’s signature writing style.