Between 2004 and 2010 I spent four months travelling the length and breadth of Portugal, staying in some 60 different towns and deciding where to go on a day-by-day basis. I journeyed by train wherever possible and filled in the gaps by bus. I preferred normal working towns to tourist haunts, and developed a healthy repugnance for the Algarve. At every opportunity I talked to people along the way, trying to discover what life was like for the Portuguese in their own country. Finding that little had been published in English on the subject, I decided to write a chronicle of these travels. It recorded the things I'd seen, conversations I'd had, reflections upon the Portuguese way of life (notably their extraordinary good manners), the effects of poverty, and curiosities of religion, language, food and the arts.