Peerless Portugal Trivia Quiz

Answer: Lusitania

In the 6th century BC, the geographical area occupied by modern-day Portugal, in the west of the Iberian Peninsula, was settled by Celtic populations; one of them were the Lusitanians, who fought against Rome for almost 200 years between the 3rd and the 2nd century BC. The Roman province established in 27 BC in the territory south of the Douro River (which also included part of western Spain) was named Lusitania, after this brave people; Portugal's name comes from "Portus Cale", a Roman-Celtic settlement at the mouth of the Douro that later became the city of Porto. Lusitania has remained in formal and literary use as an alternative name for Portugal; the term "Lusofonia", or "Lusophone World", refers to the community of Portuguese-speaking countries.

The Roman province of Numidia was located in North Africa, in present-day northeastern Algeria. Hibernia was the Latin name for Ireland, and Caledonia for Scotland.

Answer: Galician

Galician ("galego") is an Ibero-Romance language mainly spoken in Galicia, an autonomous community of Spain (where it enjoys official status) located to the north of Portugal. Both Galician and Portuguese derive from Galician-Portuguese, an extinct language that in the late Middle Ages diverged into two dialects, a northern and a southern one: the former developed into Galician, and the latter into Portuguese. Galician currently has about 3 million speakers worldwide. On account of the two languages' common origin, Galicia keeps official ties of friendship and cooperation with the countries that are part of the Lusophone World.

The photo shows the stunning facade of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, the capital of Galicia, since the Middle Ages one of the most important pilgrimage destinations for Catholics. Two pilgrim routes - The Portuguese Way and the Portuguese Coastal Way - depart from Santiago towards Portugal. The first (617 km) reaches Lisbon, the second, much shorter (265 km), reaches Porto.

Catalan is an Occitano-Romance language, and Romanian belongs to the Eastern Romance subgroup; Sardinian is in a subgroup of its own.

Answer: carnation

Also known as clove pink, the carnation (Dianthus caryophyllus) is widely cultivated for its decorative flowers, distinguished by frilled petals and a sweet, slightly spicy scent. Though carnations come in a variety of colours (including green), the red carnation is probably the most iconic one, as it has often been used as a symbol of socialism and the workers' movement. Therefore, it is not surprising that it was adopted as a symbol of the largely peaceful revolution that, on 25 April 1974, put an end to the authoritarian regime (known as Estado Novo, or Second Republic) that had ruled Portugal since 1933. Though the revolution was started by a movement of military officers, civilians joined enthusiastically; red carnations were offered to soldiers, who placed them into the muzzle of their guns or on their uniforms. The Carnation Revolution began the process that turned Portugal into the fully democratic country it is today. The first free elections were held on 25 April of the following year, and the date commemorating these two historic events is now celebrated as "Dia da Liberdade" (Freedom Day).

Together with green, red is also one of the colours of Portugal's national flag. The country's national flower is the lavender.

Answer: Pedro Álvares Cabral

In 1500, Pedro Álvares Cabral (1467-1520), a minor Portuguese nobleman, was appointed to lead an expedition to India, following in the footsteps of Vasco da Gama, who, two years earlier, had been the first European to reach the subcontinent by sea. However, once in the Atlantic Ocean Cabral's fleet of 13 ships headed west, and on 22 April 1500 reached the shores of a large landmass, which was at first thought to be an island. According to the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494), the land fell into the Portuguese sphere of influence rather than the Spanish one, so Cabral claimed the new land in the name of the Portuguese Crown. The place of the fleet's first landing, christened Monte Pascoal (Easter Mountain), is located in the state of Bahia, in northeast Brazil. In the following years, numerous expeditions reached the newly discovered land, establishing settlements. Cabral died in relative obscurity, and his role was forgotten for almost 300 years - until Brazilian Emperor Pedro II, in the mid-19th century, sponsored research into Cabral's life and discoveries. He is now regarded as a national hero in Brazil, the world's largest Portuguese-speaking country.

The 19th-century lithograph in the photo shows Cabral's first landing in Brazil. There are no known contemporary portraits of the explorer.

Prince Henry the Navigator is considered the initiator of the Age of Discovery, in the late 15th century. Bartolomeu Dias was the first to sail around the southernmost tip of Africa (1488), setting up the route that Vasco da Gama would follow ten years later.

Answer: Manueline

Known as "estilo manuelino" in Portuguese, Manueline architecture is identified with Portugal's Age of Discoveries, and especially with the reign of Manuel I (1495-1521), the king who sponsored the voyages of Vasco da Gama and Pedro Álvares Cabral (see Q.4) and laid the foundations for the development of the vast Portuguese colonial empire. Manueline architecture merges elements of late Gothic with influences from other European countries (such as Spain and Italy), and from the East - not only the Muslim world, but also India, one of the newly-established hubs of the Portuguese spice trade.

The Tower of Belém, built between 1514 and 1519 on a small island in the Tagus River, displays the eclecticism of the Manueline style. The Tower was a gateway to Lisbon, and consequently to the whole country, and a point of departure and arrival for explorers and traders. Together with the neighbouring Hyeronimite Monastery (Mosteiro dos Jerónimos) - another outstanding example of the Manueline style - the Tower of Belém was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983. Unfortunately, many other buildings from the Manueline era were lost in the 1755 earthquake that destroyed most of Lisbon. The Monastery of Batalha and the Royal Palace of Sintra are also among the major monuments built in the Manueline era.

The three incorrect choices are all styles of Gothic architecture, though the Cistercian style dates from much earlier than the other two.

Answer: Madeira

A remnant of a much larger area, the Laurisilva ("laurel forest") is part of Madeira Natural Park, located in the northern part of the island of Madeira, in the Atlantic Ocean. This type of subtropical rainforest, characterized by a large number of plant and animal species endemic to the island, is believed to have covered much of Southern Europe in the Tertiary period, between 15 and 40 million years ago. Nowadays the laurisilva is restricted to Madeira, the Azores (also an autonomous region of Portugal) and the Canary Islands - the island groups in the eastern Atlantic collectively known as Macaronesia. The mild, humid climate of these islands has allowed this unique environment to survive, while it has almost completely disappeared from mainland Europe.

The name "laurisilva" (also spelled "laurissilva") is due to the presence of evergreen trees and shrubs with similar characteristic to those in the Lauraceae family (commonly known as laurels) - namely glossy, water-repelling leaves. The Laurisilva of Madeira was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1999.

Madeira is also known for its eponymous fortified wine; the popular English cake known as Madeira cake was named after the wine, not the island.

Answer: cork

Prized for its buoyancy and impermeability, cork - a material derived mostly from the bark of the cork oak (Quercus suber), an evergreen tree native of the western Mediterranean basin - is used for a variety of purposes, such as the production of some sports equipment, or in the construction industry. However, about 60% of the cork harvested from trees is used in the making of wine stoppers. The majority of the world's cork forests are found in the Iberian Penisula, especially in Portugal, from whose "montado" landscape comes over 50% of the cork produced worldwide. Cork is one of Portugal's most important exports; the best quality cork comes from the southern regions of Alentejo and Algarve.

Because of its cultural and economic importance, in December 2011, the cork oak (called "sobreiro" in Portuguese) was declared Portugal's national tree by the Parliament.

Answer: José Saramago

José Saramago was born José de Sousa in 1922; Saramago (meaning "wild radish") was a nickname for his father's family that ended up on his birth certificate. In his twenties he started working as a journalist and translator, and published his first book in 1947. However, he did not gain international recognition until he was 60. His 1991 novel, "The Gospel According to Jesus Christ" ("O Evangelho Segundo Jesus Cristo") - which builds upon the events of the Gospels to present Christ as a flawed, all too human character - sparked controversy, both with the Catholic Church and members of the Portuguese government. Because of that, Saramago (who was a lifelong communist and atheist) left his country of birth and moved with his wife to Lanzarote, in the Canary Islands, where he died of leukemia in 2010. He was the first author writing in the Portuguese language to be selected as a Nobel Prize laureate.

In 2007, Saramago established the José Saramago Foundation with the aim to promote culture and environmental causes, as well as defending the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Foundation is housed in the striking Casa dos Bicos (House of the Spikes), a 16th-century building in Lisbon's historic Alfama neighbourhood (shown in the centre of the photo). Outside the house stands an old olive tree under which Saramago's ashes are buried.

The three writers listed as incorrect choices are also winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature: however, Dario Fo (1997) was from Italy, Octavio Paz (1990) from Mexico, and Mario Vargas Llosa (2010) from Peru.

Answer: Amália Rodrigues

One of the most distinctive features of Portuguese culture is the vein of nostalgic melancholia conveyed by the world "saudade" (loosely translated in English as "longing"). Fado ("fate"), the uniquely Portuguese music genre that developed in the early 19th century in the port districts of Lisbon, is intimately connected to this feeling of loss, longing and resignation.

Amália Rodrigues (1920-1999) is undoubtedly the best-known Portuguese "fadista" at the international level, and the best-selling Portuguese artist of all time. Born in Lisbon from a working-class family, she began singing in her teens, and by the time she was 40 she had acquired international renown, performing worldwide and also appearing in a few films. Her career continued unabated even when her health started to decline in the late '70s. When she died at the age of 79, the government declared three days of mourning; she was buried in the National Pantheon in Lisbon, and her house was turned into a museum.

The photo shows a scene related to "fado" depicted on an "azulejo", a kind of painted, glazed ceramic tile used as a decoration in the architecture of Spain, Portugal, Latin America and other countries in the Spanish and Portuguese sphere of influence.

The three ladies listed as incorrect choices are all famous Brazilian "bossa nova" singers.

Answer: pastéis de nata

Pastéis de nata (also known as "pastéis de Belém") were created in the 18th century by the monks at the Hyeronimite Monastery in the Lisbon neighbourhood of Belém (mentioned in Q.5). They are simple, but utterly delectable, little puff pastry shells filled with a rich egg custard, baked and dusted with cinnamon; they should be eaten fresh out of the oven, preferably with a cup of strong coffee. Pastéis de nata are very popular not only in Portugal (where they can be found just about everywhere, much like muffins or doughnuts in the US), but also in former Portuguese colonies and much of Western Europe. As in the case of other iconic food specialties, the original recipe - which the monks sold to the owners of a nearby sugar refinery in 1834, after the monastery was closed - is a well-kept secret. In 1837, the buyers of the recipe opened a pastry shop, known as Fábrica de Pastéis de Belém, which is very popular with locals and tourists alike.

Churros con chocolate are fried pastries traditionally dunked in hot chocolate, and arroz con leche is a kind of rice pudding; originally from Spain, they are widely enjoyed in Latin American countries. Crema de fruta is a trifle-like dessert from the Philippines.