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Up north, Porto is a gritty-luxe cultural bombshell. Layers of architecture tell of traders, wine barons and urban reinvention. The Dom Luís I Bridge – courtesy of a Gustave Eiffel protégé – slices the city in two, while alleys of tiled buildings lean over steep stone steps.
For culture seekers, Porto gets high marks. The Serralves Foundation is the holy grail – a soft-pink Art Deco villa by José Marques da Silva wrapped in manicured parkland, paired with a minimalist museum designed by Álvaro Siza that lets contemporary art breathe. Add Port tastings in Gaia’s wine lodges and the buzz of experimental design studios, and you’ve got a city that respects its bones while rewriting the script.
The Port lodges of Vila Nova de Gaia are five minutes downhill from our Porto address, which makes tasting afternoons a simple matter of crossing the bridge and climbing home again. B28's seven design apartments sit on Rua de Belomonte, with kitchenettes for a bottle bought at the cellar door and a ground-floor salon run by owner Alida Jamal that stocks organic Portuguese wine. When the visiting-chef supper clubs are on, book a seat.
Porto for culture seekers - we explore the Serralves Foundation comprising of a dusty pink 1930-40s’s Art Deco villa designed by Porto architect José Marques da Silva, a landscape-specific contemporary museum designed by Álvaro Siza.
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Travel to Portugal's fairytale den of Sintra, just outside Lisbon, for a world full of rolling hills and castles, once referred to by Byron as "glorious Eden".
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Monocle's Quality of Life Conference returns to Lisbon this September, three days of ideas, design and city living at the Gulbenkian. Here's who and what to expect.
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Meet the voices taking the stage at Monocle's Quality of Life Conference 2026 in Lisbon: mayors, architects, designers and makers shaping how we live in cities.
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Paestum Temples in Southern Italy is one of those ancient antiquities that you have to visit – this UNESCO World Heritage Site in Cilento Campania is a treasure trove of ancient Greece including three of the world’s best-preserved temples.
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Es Baluard holds more than nine hundred works inside Palma's Renaissance walls, from Anglada-Camarasa to Miró and Barceló, with the bay laid out below.
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Faro is the gateway to Portugal's Algarve but don't be tempted not to visit this wonderful medieval port and culture stuffed city dating back to the 8th Century.
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With an extraordinarily creative mind, Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro (1846 – 1923), was known for taking his own approach which can be seen in this revealing museum which showcases his graphic arts, caricatures, ceramics, object design and decoration.
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Radical, sometimes political and always on the pulse of Athens’ ever-evolving art scene, The Breeder Gallery is housed in an old ice cream factory, redesigned by architect Aris Zambicos.
A think tank for the bold, the curious, the creators of tomorrow. Where minds collide, conversations spark, and urban life gets redefined. If you shape the future, you belong here.
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Príncipe Real is Lisbon’s green crown: palacetes, cedar gardens and design ateliers shape a district of lyrical calm. A cultured quarter where heritage, creativity and elegance drift together beneath jacaranda-lined boulevards.
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From the cliff-carved tombs of Tlos to the ghost village of Kayaköy, trace the soul of ancient Lycia along the Turkish Riviera’s sunlit coastline and mountain-framed archaeological wonders.
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Get the insider news and lowdown on what we've been up to, where we've been, and who we've met along the way. Be the first to discover new places and get the scoop on our favourites.