i’ve been to both countries, just not those exact cities. personally i liked france better, its more modern and developed in general, and i found the people to be friendlier. the weather should be good in either one of those cities at that time too so that shouldnt be a problem.

Lisbon hands down: – portuguese culture is prety distinct from anything you’ll find in the rest of europe. – Great cuisine(especially if you like pork and seafood) – Very affordable as compared to the rest of Europe – great beaches

Only negative is that it is pretty far removed from central europe.

Also skip Biarritz ..it was once a playground of the rich and famous, but not anymore. The Ocean is freeeeeeezing here (unless you have a wet suit don’t plan on doing much swimming), the winds areextreme (cold winds blowing off the atlantic are only good for German windsurfers) and there’s nothing really do do or see.

There’s lots of places in Europe that used to be hot spots, but are now coasting on reputation…Biarritz, Nice, Monaco, Marseille, Naples, Pisa are the worst culprits

Portugal is unanimously acknowledged as a developed country by international organizations. Whatever criteria you’re using to make this conclusion is, without doubt in my mind, ungrounded and subjective, as I can’t think of anything that would make Portugal “less developed and less modern”, other than perhaps some superficial reasons. Even if it weren’t a developed country, this shouldn’t affect someone’s decision to visit (unless the country is completely lacking, such as Afghansitan or Papua New Guinea), and many people love “roughing it” in a less developed country. What is true, is that Portugal reached economic maturity at a later time than France, not that there’s overwhelming evidence of that today.

I like Portugal, but it is a bit more “quaint” than the rest of europe…get out of most big cities and folks hauling stuff in donkey carts is not an uncommon sight….but hey, that’s what makes portugual so unque IMHO

I guess I’ll have to rephrase what i said about Portugal above: it is developed, but not quite on “1st world countries” level. it doesn’t have the infrastructure that most of western Europe, North America, Scandinavian countries, australia, etc have. and for that reason, obviously Portugal is cheaper than France almost anywhere…

and thanks finnegan ill take that into consideration.

Nice is basically a seaside resort city, with proximity to Cannes and the Principality of Monaco (Monte Carlo).

Lisbon is a world class City! The whole Country (Portugal) has undergone a quantum leap for its Infrastructure, especially over the last 10-years (i.e., since Expo’98). You wouldn’t believe MetroLisboa, the very inexpensive subway system. And Portugal’s high speed rail system (Alfa Pendular) can get you to Coimbra in an hour. Lisbon’s only downside that I can see is its remoteness from mainline Europe. It’s an EU Member and its currency is the Euro (i.e., no more Escudos).
I encountered more people who spoke English in Lisbon than in Barcelona, for example.

I agree with Finnegan on the cuisine: The Pastries are great, as are the Mariscos (Don’t mix them!). You can get really good wines and the Portuguese Beer (Sagres) is excellent

Yes, actually Portugal is “on 1st world countries level”. Whatever criteria you’re using to make this conclusion is, again, your own superficial assessment, and not something that international organizations (such as the UN, OECD, EU, World Bank) or private institutions (EIU) or NGOs will agree with you on.

If by “infrastructure” you mean universal electricity coverage, indoor plumbing, proper sanitation systems, paved roads, developed irrigations systems; universal school attendance for children, near universal adult literacy and nutrition, low infant mortality, and long life expectancy, Portugal is the same as the rest of western Europe, US, Canada, Scandinavia, Australia. If you’re looking at superficial things like a few old people still use donkeys, and they don’t have American/Canadian-style suburbs, these are superficial things that don’t mean anything when assessing quality of life and level of development. If you’re looking at per capita GDP, Portugal’s may be on the lower end of western Europe, but that’s only because you’re comparing many of the world’s richest countries (including Portugal) to each other. Somebody’s gonna be the least rich among the world’s richest, and Portugal’s is still very high by world standards.

I’m gonna agree with the Canadian sorta…Portugal isn’t a third world country, but it ain’t the economic powerhouse of Europe either. Most large towns are like any other in Europe, but get into the countryside and smaller towns and it definietly has a “folksy” feel. Portuguese people don’t seem to have the same North American North American drive to succeed (i.e. big house, shiney new cars, lotsa debt, etc.). That’s not necessarily a bad thing though. By material standards Portugues people may not be the wealthiest (especially those living in the Azores and other islands), but they seem to know what’s important in life: family, good food, and cheap wine

Point taken, luv the beach, however I will humbly disagree. You have some valid arguments above, and Portugal may well be on its way to becoming a 1st world country, but from my experiences and based on research I have seen, it is not quite there yet. This does not mean that Portugal is not worth visiting! I thought Portugal was great, I just liked France better.

Granted: Portugal has been hit hard by the worldwide economic recession. Years ago, the Portuguese gave other EU Countries (mostly Germany) Tax incentives to build assembly plants and Manufacturing facilities in Northern Portugal. Many of them are now shuttered, and the Braga area is suffering.

But such is not the case for Lisbon. Lisbon is a World Class City! It’s got Museums and Monuments, Monasteries and Palaces, great seafood and some of the most beautiful women I have had the privilege to cast eyes upon in my lifetime.

And what exactly defines a “1st world country” according to you? Can you list the criteria, and describe how Portugal falls short? Please produce this “research” that you “have seen”, and describe your “observations” that allowed you to come your conclusion. In my previous post, I specifically cited 5 international organizations who would know about the subject matter (actually, let me add the IMF, so make that 6). Can you cite one?

cdy_canadian, this isn’t about your opinion versus mine. It’s about you making up your own standards on what defines a “1st world country”, and projecting it as fact. Please don’t state things so matter-of-factly when you don’t know what you’re talking about, with all due respect. As I noted earlier, whatever criteria you’re using to declare Portugal as a country that is “not quite there yet”, is superficial and culturally biased, and not rooted in anything substantial. A slower pace of life and the paint peeling off some buildings in Coimbra is hardly indicative of a country that’s “not quite there yet”. The developed nations of the world differ quite a bit from each other, so please quit projecting your culturally-shaped and unsubstantiated notions on other countries.

Not being Europe’s economic powerhouse doesn’t mean that a country isn’t developed with a high standard of living. And the “1st world” designation (which applied to Portugal during the Cold War), is now an antiquated term post-Cold War.

Me thinks you protest too much Luv…During Communist rule, Portugal was pretty closer to being a third world country. It’s only been the last 20 years that it’s begun to turn around economicially (it still has the lowest GDP in Europe) which means there are still quite a few pockets of poverty, places where electricity and other infrastructure is pretty basic, etc. I wouldn’t go so far as calling it third world, but outside the main tourist areas, it can be pretty basic….which is one of the reasons I love it.

People’s opinions are one thing, finnegan. Like how you dislike 99% of the places you’ve been to.

But I don’t entertain when people project their own made-up and subjective ideas as “fact”.

So, let’s go over some of your claims:

Ambiguous statement.

“Third world” referred to the non-aligned nations during the Cold War, and included a wide range of economies, from vastly underdeveloped (like Mali) to a dynamic emerging economy with a relatively high standard of living (like Singapore in the 1970s and 1980s). Portugal was more like Singapore than Mali or Guatemala or India for that matter.

In colloquial usage, the term “third world” has ambiguous parameters and is used subjectively. Same goes for “first world”. Someone who’s done “research” on the matter, wouldn’t be using these terms.

This isn’t about Portugal 20 years ago, or during the Cold War. It’s about Portugal today.

No, it has the lowest per capita GDP in Western Europe. There’s a big difference.

All of Western Europe is developed economies, and somebody’s gonna be the least rich among the richest. If we include all of Europe, Portugal falls somewhere in the middle.

What you’re doing here, finnegan, is that you have personally decided (without the backing of any international institution that knows more on the subject matter than you do) to place the invisible line (that divides the “first world” from the rest), somewhere above Portugal. I could place that line above Canada if I wanted to and call you third world.

Please describe these “pockets of poverty” that you’ve seen in Portugal. Does it look like America’s Appalachia, rural Alabama, or the slums of Chicago’s ghettos? Or is it closer to Canada’s hopelessly job-less Labrador?

Did you actually walk into anyone’s home in Portugal, and notice that they lack electricity and indoor plumbing? What exactly did you observe in these “pockets of poverty” that you encountered in Portugal? Other than an old man riding a donkey.

You either have electricity or you don’t. There’s no such thing as “where the electricity is basic”. You either have indoor plumbing or you don’t. No such thing as “basic service”.

Please specify which infrastructure you’re talking about, and how exactly it’s “basic” in Portugal.

baloney

Again, describe “basic”.

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The World Bank categorizes the following 66 countries and territories as “high income” in 2008:

Andorra
Antigua and Barbuda
Aruba
Australia
Austria
Bahamas
Bahrain
Barbados
Belgium
Bermuda
Brunei Darussalam
Canada
Cayman Islands
Channel Islands
Croatia
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Denmark
Estonia
Equatorial Guinea
Faeroe Islands
Finland
France
French Polynesia
Germany
Greece
Greenland
Guam
Hong Kong (SAR of China)
Hungary
Iceland
Ireland
Isle of Man
Israel
Italy
Japan
South Korea
Kuwait
Liechtenstein
Luxembourg
Macao (SAR of China)
Malta
Monaco
Netherlands
Netherlands Antilles
New Caledonia
New Zealand
Northern Mariana Islands
Norway
Oman
Portugal
Puerto Rico
Qatar
San Marino
Saudi Arabia
Singapore
Slovak Republic
Slovenia
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Trinidad and Tobago
United Arab Emirates
United Kingdom
United States
US Virgin Islands

source: http://web.worldbank…

————————

The IMF categorizes the following 33 countries and territories as “advanced economies”:

Australia
Austria
Belgium
Canada
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Denmark
Finland
France
Germany
Greece
Hong Kong (SAR of China)
Iceland
Ireland
Israel
Italy
Japan
South Korea
Luxembourg
Malta
Netherlands
New Zealand
Norway
Portugal
Singapore
Slovakia
Slovenia
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Taiwan
United Kingdom
United States

source: http://www.imf.org/e…

————————

Human Development Index (UN’s standard of living survey).
Published December 2008, using data for 2005 and 2006
Countries ranked by a score between 0 and 1. Portugal ranks #33 out of 179 countries.

Some countries for comparison (rank/country/score):

3 Canada 0.967
21 Britain 0.942
28 Singapore 0.918
33 Portugal 0.900
0.9 threshold
45 Croatia 0.862
55 Saudi Arabia 0.835
65 Serbia 0.821
70 Brazil 0.807
0.8 threshold. countries above 0.8 have “high HDI” according to the UN
95 Tunisia 0.762
125 South Africa 0.670
132 India 0.609
153 Senegal 0.502
165 Rwanda 0.435

source: http://hdr.undp.org/…

————————

Quality of Life Survey
Economist, 2005 study
scores on a scale of 1 to 10

Some countries for comparison (rank/country/score):

1 Ireland 8.333
8 Italy 7.810
13 United States 7.615
14 Canada 7.599
18 Hong Kong 7.347
19 Portugal 7.307
20 Austria 7.268
24 Belgium 7.095
29 Britain 6.917
39 Brazil 6.470
43 Sri Lanka 6.417
47 Panama 6.361
50 Turkey 6.286
53 Peru 6.216
61 Vietnam 6.080
71 Indonesia 5.814
88 Iran 5.343
93 Pakistan 5.229
98 Ukraine 5.032
108 Nigeria 4.505

source: http://www.economist…

————————

Infant mortality
United Nations World Population Prospects report published in 2006

select countries for comparison, from lowest to highest
rank/country/infant mortality rate (per 1000 live births)

1 Iceland 2.9
3 Japan 3.2
8 Czech Republic 3.8
10 South Korea 4.1
13 Spain 4.2
23 Canada 4.8
26 Portugal 5.0
33 United States 6.3
43 Chile 7.2
47 Kuwait 8.1
50 Lithuania 8.5
58 Thailand 10.6
72 Jamaica 13.6
81 Russia 16.6
96 Ecuador 21.1
100 Lebanon 22.0
110 Turkey 27.5
125 Georgia 38.7
136 Haiti 38.8
146 Ghana 56.6
165 Tanzania 72.6
177 Mozambique 95.9
191 Mali 128.5

source: http://www.un.org/es…

————————

CIA World Factbook infant mortality estimates for 2009

select countries for comparison, from lowest to highest
rank/country/infant mortality rate (per 1000 live births)

1 Singapore 2.31
3 Sweden 2.75
6 Macau (SAR of China) 3.22
8 France 3.33
14 Czech Republic 3.79
22 Denmark 4.34
29 Australia 4.75
30 Portugal 4.78
32 Britain 4.85
36 Canada 5.04
46 United States 6.26
58 Estonia 7.32
65 Costa Rica 8.77
76 Argentina 11.44
87 United Arab Emirates 12.7
92 Dominica 13.65
101 Malaysia 15.87
112 Mexico 18.42
120 China (PRC mainland) 20.25
135 Samoa 24.22
146 Guatemala 27.84
171 Nepal 47.46
205 Ethiopia 80.80
224 Angola 180.21

source: https://www.cia.gov/…

————————

Percentage of population with access to electricity in 2000
source: http://earthtrends.w…

select countries:

Australia 100.0%
Bangladesh 20.4%
Brazil 94.9%
Britain 100.0%
Cambodia 15.8%
Cameroon 20.0%
Canada 100.0%
China 98.6%
Colombia 81.0%
Finland 100.0%
France 100.0%
Germany 100.0%
Greece 100.0%
Guatemala 66.7%
Haiti 34.0%
India 43.0%
Indonesia 53.4%
Iran 97.9%
Israel 100.0%
Italy 100.0%
Jamaica 90.0%
Japan 100.0%
Jordan 95.0%
Kuwait 100.0%
Libya 99.8%
Madagascar 8.0%
Malaysia 96.9%
Mexico 95.0%
Netherlands 100.0%
Peru 73.0%
Poland 100.0%
Portugal 100.0%
South Africa 66.1%
Saudi Arabia 97.7%
South Korea 100.0%
Spain 100.0%
Switzerland 100.0%
Tanzania 10.5%
Thailand 82.1%
Turkey 95.0%
United Arab Emirates 96.0%
United States 100.0%
Venezuela 94.0%
Vietnam 75.8%

————————

Life Expectancy by Country
United Nations World Population Prospects report published in 2006

rank/country/overall life expectancy
select countries, from highest to lowest

1 Japan 82.6
6 Spain 80.9
11 Canada 80.7
19 Greece 79.5
23 Germany 79.4
25 Finland 79.3
38 United States 78.2
39 Portugal 78.1
40 Slovenia 77.9
42 Barbados 77.3
55 Qatar 75.6
59 Argentina 75.3
63 Slovakia 74.7
65 Vietnam 74.2
76 Bahamas 73.5
82 China (PRC mainland) 73.0
87 Latvia 72.7
92 Brazil 72.4
96 Armenia 72.0
106 Egypt 71.3
112 Guatemala 70.3
120 Grenada 68.7
123 Ukraine 67.9
136 Pakistan 65.5
148 Myanmar 62.1
152 Cambodia 59.7
167 Kenya 54.1
173 Uganda 51.5
189 Zimbabwe 43.5

source: http://www.un.org/es…

————————

Life Expectancy by Country
CIA World Factbook, 2009

rank/country/overall life expectancy
select countries, from highest to lowest

1 Andorra 82.51
6 Canada 81.23
10 Israel 80.73
13 Italy 80.2
17 Norway 79.95
25 Britain 79.01
28 South Korea 78.72
31 Cyprus 78.33
33 Ireland 78.24
34 Portugal 78.21
35 United States 78.11
39 Chile 77.34
43 Czech Republic 76.81
47 Uruguay 76.35
53 Brunei 75.74
58 Qatar 75.35
62 Lithuania 74.9
70 Serbia 73.9
75 Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 73.65
79 Hungary 73.44
82 Thailand 73.1
89 El Salvador 72.33
93 Turkey 71.96
99 Nicaragua 71.5
104 Philippines 71.09
110 Belarus 70.63
116 Kyrgyzstan 69.43
128 Azerbaijan 66.66
134 Nepal 65.46
146 Botswana 61.85
160 Ethiopia 55.41
176 South Africa 48.98
183 Malawi 43.82

source: https://www.cia.gov/…

Growing up in Portugal I can honestly say that Luv the Beaches comments have offended me as they are subjective and frankly racist. Us portugese are very proud of our heritage and do enjoy living in caves and riding donkeys along our dirt paths and open sewers. We would rather be called neanderthals than being named in the same sentence as other powerhouse countries such as France, the US of A and Morroco. While other countries try to move forward and improve infrastructure we try to move down the ladder and go back to our roots of the 1500s.

I first visited Portugal (Lisbon) in 1974; and even back then, I didn’t see people riding donkeys or living in caves. I did see that in Morocco! Maybe it’s that way in Angola? In ’98 I also spent some time on Sao Miguel & Terceira in the Açores: lots of German retirees but no Donkeys and no people living in caves. I did enjoy the local Beer brewed on Sao Miguel.

Back in 1974, we had relatives in Lisbon and toured extensively. Over the past 10-years, I have visited Lisbon and Porto at least a half dozen times.

I also enjoy the Portuguese wines and Cuisine. IMHO, Portuguese women are among the most beautiful in the World (lots of Bacalo & Olive Oil and no Cellulite!).

No one is slamming Portugal Luv. Sorry that you have such a thin skin when it comes to your country. Thanks for posting all those stats that are totally irrelevant for anyone thinking about traveling to Portugal (hands up everyone who bases whether or not to visit a country based on its Avg. Life Expectancy?). But to respond to Luv, Portugal is no economic powerhouse (At last check its GDP ranked 19 out of the 27 countries of the European Union). Personally, I don’t want portugal to be another Germany. I like it the way it is…too bad you want it to be something it isn’t Luv

PORTUGAL IS THE BEST! there is so much to see and do.

i agree with evanneto!

I agree too. You should go there because it’s a beautiful country, not because its the 7th lowest for infant mortality

Wow, what a cleverly sarcastic punchline, finnegan.

But I was actually the first person in this thread to state that a country’s level of development should bear no relevance on one’s decision to visit there.

cdy_canadian is the one who believes that economic/capital development should affect your decision to visit a country. Not me.

This entire debate only stemmed from cdy_canadian’s declaration that Portugal “is not quite first world”, and you backed her with your “research” that Portugal only has “basic” electricity and water.

But because you’ve lost your credibility as a self-styled expert on global economic development you’ve condensed our entire conversation into a straw man debate.

Somehow, this entire debate is about me now, trying to convnice people to visit a particular country because it is developed. Not about cdy canadian or about your infactual statements.

You’re being very intellectually dishonest right now, and you know very well what you’re doing.

AGAIN….being the least rich among some of the world’s richest countries, doesn’t mean that Portugal isn’t a high-income, developed economy. You’re using highly selective criteria to back up your positions.

AGAIN….not being the EU’s “economic powerhouse” doesn’t mean that Portugal is backward or undeveloped. Denmark isn’t exactly the EU’s “economic powerhouse”, either. That would be Germany, and Germany alone.

AGAIN….you stated that “outside the main tourist areas” infrastructure development is “only basic”, and then I proved to you that this is untrue, not according to me, but according to the IMF, CIA, etc.

So please cut the crap.

I’m coming at Portugal from a tourist’s perspective not an economists perspective. Feel free to continue your cut and past defence of Portugal, I’ll simply say it’s a beautiful place. The Cities rival those found anywhere in europe, while the rural areas, by average north American standards are somewhat more quaint. To be honest rural Portugal reminds me a lot of life on many smaller Greek islands and parts of Spain – pretty laid back.