All four spots in the semi-finals of the Under 19 Girls Singles event at the European Youth Championships in Malmö are occupied by players from different nations In the penultimate stage Veronika MATIUNINA of Ukraine will face Mariana SANTA COMBA of Portugal while Zuzanna WIELGOS of Poland will compete against Bianca MEI ROSU of Romania 9 seed Veronika MATIUNINA the reigning Under 21 European champion justified her status by beating Germany’s No 50 seed Lorena MORSCH in straight games (10 10 11 7) 2 seed Zuzanna WIELGOS halted Slovenia’s No 16 seed Sara TOKIC’S great run with a victory (8 -5 6 10 3) In a quarterfinal clash Mariana SANTA COMBA booked her place among the top 4 needing all seven games to defeat Italy’s No 38 seed Miriam CARNOVALE (9 -2 -8 5 4 -10 5) During the match I tried to stay focused and always keep on working so I could win this match In the next round I will try to do my best and play without pressure ” said Mariana 3 seed Bianca MEI ROSU also needed seven games to overcome France’s Leana HOCHART (3 -6 7 10 -10 -17 8) My adversary played really well and had a super hard forehand My tactic was to serve short to her forehand because she has a very good receive in her backhand Last year I finished as number 3 and I hope I can do even better this time ” said MEI ROSU In previous rounds with the departure of No 1 seed Mia GRIESEL of Germany in the early stages of the event Lilou MASSART of Belgium and Agathe AVEZOU of France the upper half of the draw “opened” for Veronika MATIUNINA 9 also did not leave anything to chance and cleared her way effectively in the Round of 16 overcoming No 4 seed Anna BRZYSKA of Poland in straight games (9 4 6 6) The same round saw Germany’s Lorena MORSCH seeded No 50 beating Austria’s Anastasia STERNER 4-3 (11 7 -4 -6 -6 8 13) In the Round of 32 Karolina HOLDA of Poland halted the progress of No 7 seed Lilou MASSART of Belgium (6 4 -11 8 4) In the same round Maria BERZOSA of Spain also lost her encounter against Romania’s Evelyn UNGVARI who won in six games (8 -7 9 5 -7 4) The European Table Tennis Union (ETTU) is the governing body of the sport of table tennis in Europe and is the only authority recognized for this purpose by the International Table Tennis Federation The ETTU deals with all matters relating to table tennis at a European level including the development and promotion of the sport in the territories controlled by its 58 member associations and the organization of continental table tennis competitions Too many automated requests from this network The decision comes after the Department of Mines cancelled its Santa Comba concessions in Spain Already have an account? Sign in here Established in 1909 by Herbert Hoover, Mining Magazine provides comprehensive technical insight into mining operations. It aims to inform and support mine management in decision-making regarding mining techniques, technologies, workforce, logistics, and supply chains. Individual, Team and Corporate options available A growing series of reports, each focused on a key discussion point for the mining sector, brought to you by the Mining Magazine Intelligence team. MMI Future Fleets Report 2025 looks at how companies are using alternative energy sources to cut greenhouse gas emmissions Exclusive research for Mining Magazine Intelligence Automation and Digitalisation Report 2024 shows mining companies are embracing cutting-edge tech The ESG Mining Company Index report provides an in-depth evaluation of ESG performance of 61 of the world's largest mining companies. Using a robust framework, it assesses each company across 9 meticulously weighted indicators within 6 essential pillars. A comprehensive review of exploration trends and technologies, highlighting the best intercepts and discoveries and the latest initial resource estimates. Copyright © 2025 Aspermont Media Ltd. All rights reserved. Aspermont Media is a company registered in England and Wales. Company No. 08096447. VAT No. 136738101. Aspermont Media, WeWork, 1 Poultry, London, England, EC2R 8EJ. Portugal’s CTM Mirandela lost a long-distance duel in Round 3 of the Europe Cup Women, but thanks to their 3-1 victory at home at the end of last year, they secured a place in the quarterfinals. HB Ostrov z.s. won the second leg at home, but their 3-2 victory was not enough to advance to the next stage. Veronika POLAKOVA claimed both her matches today, defeating Annamaria ERDELYI and Mariana SANTA COMBA, while Tatiana KUKULKOVA overcame Ines MATOS. On the other hand, Zdena BLASKOVA was unable to contribute to the scoreboard, suffering defeats against Annamaria ERDELYI and Mariana SANTA COMBA. The European Table Tennis Union (ETTU) is the governing body of the sport of table tennis in Europe, and is the only authority recognized for this purpose by the International Table Tennis Federation. The ETTU deals with all matters relating to table tennis at a European level, including the development and promotion of the sport in the territories controlled by its 58 member associations, and the organization of continental table tennis competitions, including the European Championships. 20175:06 PM UTCDeadly wildfires in Portugal and SpainFlames ripped across Iberian countryside left tinder-dry by an unusually hot summer and early autumn fanned by strong winds as remnants of ex-Hurricane Ophelia brushed coastal areas [1/29]Trees are seen after a forest fire near Marinha Grande [2/29]Albertina Miranda walks inside her burnt house after a forest fire in Lagares [3/29]Firefighters work to extinguish flames from a forest fire in Cabanoes near Lousa [5/29]Farmers walk their livestock on a mountain road past vegetation burnt by forest fire in San Martin de Cereixedo REUTERS/Vincent WestSAN MARTIN DE CEREIXEDO [6/29]A car drives along a mountain road past vegetation burnt by forest fire in San Martin de Cereixedo [8/29]A man walks in his burnt property after a forest fire in Lagares [9/29]A cyclist is seen on a road after a forest fire near Marinha Grande [10/29]The sun is seen behind a thick smoke from forest fires in Tablado [11/29]Burnt vehicles are seen after a forest fire in Miro [12/29]A burnt speed limit sign is seen after a forest fire in Miro [13/29]Smoke is seen amidst burned trees after a forest fire in Chandebrito [14/29]A firefighter is seen near flames from a forest fire in Cabanoes [15/29]Burned wreckage of a van where two people died is seen amidst burned trees after a forest fire in Chandebrito [16/29]A firefighter stands near a firewall in Tablado [17/29]Firefighters try to extinguish flames from a forest fire in Cabanoes near Lousa [18/29]People walk through burned trees after a forest fire in Chandebrito [19/29]Firefighters from the Military Emergency Unit (UME) work to put out a forest fire near As Nieves Spanish Defence Ministry/UME/Luismi Ortiz/Handout via REUTERSAS NIEVES [20/29]A burnt house is seen following a forest fire in Vila Nova More in this CollectionSee all picturesItem 21 of 29 A woman walks past a burned wreckage of a car after a forest fire in Chandebrito REUTERS/Miguel Vidal[21/29]A woman walks past a burned wreckage of a car after a forest fire in Chandebrito , opens new tab Browse an unrivalled portfolio of real-time and historical market data and insights from worldwide sources and experts. , opens new tabScreen for heightened risk individual and entities globally to help uncover hidden risks in business relationships and human networks. © 2025 Reuters. All rights reserved Metrics details The early diagnosis of neurodegenerative disorders is still an open issue despite the many efforts to address this problem Alzheimer’s disease (AD) remains undiagnosed for over a decade before the first symptoms Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is now common and widely available and has been used to image the retina of AD patients and healthy controls to search for biomarkers of neurodegeneration early diagnosis tools would need to rely on images of patients in early AD stages which are not available due to late diagnosis To shed light on how to overcome this obstacle we resort to 57 wild-type mice and 57 triple-transgenic mouse model of AD to train a network with mice aged 3 and 8 months and classify mice at the ages of 1 we computed fundus images from OCT data and trained a convolution neural network (CNN) to classify those into the wild-type or transgenic group CNN performance accuracy ranged from 80 to 88% for mice out of the training group’s age raising the possibility of diagnosing AD before the first symptoms through the non-invasive imaging of the retina Despite the many and clear advantages of NNs NNs are trained to discriminate between the examples provided but are not forced to learn features that can be applied out of the conditions of the training set it can only be expectable that these systems allow overcoming the lack of experts in a particular field by processing/analyzing significant amounts of data a NN is typically limited by the training data (ground truth); concerning medical data it has been used as a source of information on the changes unfolding in the CNS and as a surrogate for changes unfolding in the brain Another obstacle in studying neurodegenerative disorders is the time scale in which these changes unfold AD is considered to develop for many years before possible diagnosis with all associated consequences; unknown changes at the onset of the disease and the impossibility to intervene when changes are still minute and would have a more significant impact on disease progression The above reasons led us to design and perform the present study in which we aim to answer two scientific questions in the context of discrimination between the retinas of wild-type and the triple-transgenic (3xTg-AD) mouse model of AD: (1) can a neural network learn features to discriminate the two groups consistently in a longitudinal period and (2) can a neural network be trained to discriminate in time points outside the trained/learned period and in agreement with the European Community Directive Guidelines for the care and use of nonhuman animals for scientific purposes (2010/63/EU) transposed into the Portuguese law in 2013 (DL113/2013) All animals were housed in a certified facility with a temperature-controlled environment under a 12:12 h light–dark cycle All acquisitions were performed during the light phase OCT acquisitions were performed under light anaesthesia with 80 mg/kg ketamine and 5 mg/kg xylazine (IP) the pupils dilated with 0.5% tropicamide and 2.5% phenylephrine and ocular analgesia was achieved with oxibuprocaine MVF (mean-value fundus) images examples from two left eyes of mice two months old (top: WT From left to right: RNFL-GCL (retinal nerve fibre layer-ganglion cell layer) complex The number of acquisitions per group, eye, and age used in the present study is presented in Table 1 these yielded a total of 1144 MVF images per layer/layer-aggregate Because subtle differences may exist within the dataset between the two mouse groups all MVF images were normalised to ensure the same intensity distribution for all images limiting the possibility that discrimination is based on simple intensity-based metrics we applied contrast-limited adaptive histogram equalisation (CLAHE) to adjust pixel intensities towards a uniform grayscale distribution and enhance local contrast The resulting image was then low-pass filtered (LPF) (Gaussian filter) to find broader regional differences in intensity (filter parameters: 121 × 121 pixels’ kernel and standard deviation of 25) A new image resulting from the element-wise division of CLAHE by LPF was then computed and normalized to have zero mean and unit variance this image’s variance was adjusted by multiplying it by 8 (ensuring all images are kept within the original range) and adding 128 (8-bit images) for each pre-processed image used for the training of the NN two new images were created: one as the vertical flip (top–bottom flip) and another as a rotation of the original image of either 90° or 270° Transfer learning was applied both via feature extraction and fine-tuning the Inception-v3’s classification layer was replaced by a global average pooling layer followed by a fully-connected layer with a sigmoid activation function to classify images as belonging to the WT or 3xTg-AD mouse group only the weights of the last layer were updated during the training and the fine-tuning was extended only to the last inception module The above procedure for transfer learning was independently repeated five times as an independent CNN was created for the RNFL-GCL complex Data pre-processing was implemented in MATLAB Release 2021b (The Math-Works The network training was performed on a desktop equipped with an AMD Ryzen 9 3900 × CPU @3.8 GHz with 12 cores 64 GB RAM and an Nvidia RTX 3060 with 12 GB of memory Performance metrics need to be chosen considering the problem being addressed and the distribution of the labels in the dataset and F1-score are commonly used to evaluate a model’s performance and its ability as a class predictor To address both questions put forward in the present study data was split per animal to ensure no data from one animal can be present in more than one of the training not all time points were considered for the training and validation sets and 8 months were considered for training and validation and 12-month-old mice for testing purposes only This division allows for testing the classification ability of the neural network on mice either younger or older than those used for training Data was split into train/validation and test sets with 80% of mice being used in the train/validation set (46 WT and 46 3xTg-AD mice) and 20% used in the test set (11 WT and 11 3xTg-AD mice) a similar scheme was applied to split mice into the train (75%) and validation (25%) sets The number of eyes in the train/validation set is presented in Table 2; the test set is presented in Table 3 one testing only within the period considered for the training to answer the first scientific question (determine the feasibility of classification between WT and AD within the same age range) and one testing exclusively for ages outside of the training period to answer the second scientific question (determine the classification ability of the neural model outside its training age range) Performance metrics were evaluated for the two tests detailed in the previous section. Results are shown in Table 4 (mice of 3, 4 and 8 months old in the training/validation/test sets) and Table 5 (mice of 3 4 and 8 months old in the training and validation sets and mice of 1 showing the discrimination power of these neural networks to distinguish between WT and transgenic mice Even more so as the training group incorporates retinas of distinct ages hence forcing the network for each layer/aggregate to learn common features across this time window all metrics show a decrease in performance for the second scenario in which the test set is outside the age range of the training set the decrease in performance can be considered modest despite the large differences in the age of the older animals in the training group (8-months-old) and testing group (12-months-old) As classification errors distribute evenly between left and right eyes, in Table 6 we present the distribution of classification errors by group and age the classifications for the remaining layers present a significant portion of their errors at the age of 1-month-old this time point alone is responsible for 30% of the classification errors the innermost layers of the retina present fewer errors with these steadily increasing from the RNFL-GCL complex to the ONL fewer errors were found for the time points on which NNs were trained most errors were found for the first time point while the error for the last time point is within the range of those for the three to 8-months-old the error at the 2-month-old time point is higher than that of 12-months-old despite the latter being further away from the training ages We kept all animals for the entire project timeframe in the present study instead of sacrificing some along the study period This approach allowed us to perform the analysis herein that would require a much larger number of animals A single model of the AD was considered as adding more would have rendered this study not feasible because of the number of animals involved this proof-of-concept can now be tested in other animal models of disease Instead of using the traditional approach of training and classifying cases of the same age or disease stage (a cross-sectional study) we aimed to perform this study across multiple ages to learn if a neural network can learn consistent features from cases at different stages of the natural progression both on the ageing and disease progression This is of crucial importance for AD since disease staging and duration is often unknown understanding if a network can learn consistent features across multiple stages and ages is of relevance the results of the present study show that substantial differences in the retina are present and detectable by our classification method which would explain the much better performance achieved for the latter time point even though there is a significant gap in mice’ age comparing the oldest mice in both groups respectively in the training and validation groups this would explain the better performance achieved in classifying mice of 12-months-old compared to the performance in classifying 2-month-old mice despite the lower age difference to the training and validation sets another possible explanation is that changes in the retina precede those in the brain It suggests that introduced genes play a role in the neurodevelopment of the mouse model of AD which would require revisiting prior studies and their conclusions or that the retina would be the right location to detect the early changes in the CNV associated with AD the present work demonstrates the possibility of training a neural network to learn common features of the central nervous system and using those to identify cases outside the training range This is of paramount importance as it puts forward the hypothesis of training a neural network based on existing data from patients and control groups and applying it to identify emerging cases or shed light on the changes unfolding in the human central nervous system this methodology might be extendable to other neurodegenerative diseases following the same rationale that changes in the retina can be linked to changes in the brain The dataset used in this article is available upon a formal and reasonable request from the corresponding author Jack, C. R. et al. Serial PIB and MRI in normal, mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s disease: Implications for sequence of pathological events in Alzheimer’s disease. Brain 132(5), 1355–1365. https://doi.org/10.1093/brain/awp062 (2009) 2020 Alzheimer’s disease facts and figures. (2020). Alzheimer’s Dementia. 16(3), 391–460. https://doi.org/10.1002/alz.12068 Milletari, F., Navab, N. & Ahmadi, S.-A. V-Net: Fully convolutional neural networks for volumetric medical image segmentation. 2016 Fourth Int. Conf. Vision (3DV). https://doi.org/10.1109/3dv.2016.79 (2016) Sarvamangala, D. R. & Kulkarni, R. V. Convolutional neural networks in medical image understanding: A survey. Evol. Intel. 15(1), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12065-020-00540-3 (2022) Karthik, R., Vaichole, T. S., Kulkarni, S. K., Yadav, O. & Khan, F. Eff2Net: An efficient channel attention-based convolutional neural network for skin disease classification. Biomed. Signal Process. Control 73, 103406. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bspc.2021.103406 (2022) Yadav, S. S. & Jadhav, S. M. Deep convolutional neural network based medical image classification for disease diagnosis. J. Big Data 6(1), 113. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40537-019-0276-2 (2019) Chen, Q. et al. A transfer learning approach for malignant prostate lesion detection on multiparametric MRI. Technol. Cancer Res. Treat. 18, 153303381985836. https://doi.org/10.1177/1533033819858363 (2019) Talo, M., Yildirim, O., Baloglu, U. B., Aydin, G. & Acharya, U. R. Convolutional neural networks for multi-class brain disease detection using MRI images. Comput. Med. Imaging Graph. 78, 101673. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compmedimag.2019.101673 (2019) Shin, H.-C. et al. Deep convolutional neural networks for computer-aided detection: CNN architectures, dataset characteristics and transfer learning. IEEE Trans. Med. Imaging 35(5), 1285–1298. https://doi.org/10.1109/tmi.2016.2528162 (2016) Zhang, R. et al. Automatic detection and classification of colorectal polyps by transferring low-level CNN features from nonmedical domain. IEEE J. Biomed. Health Inform. 21(1), 41–47. https://doi.org/10.1109/jbhi.2016.2635662 (2017) Yu, X., Zeng, N., Liu, S. & Zhang, Y.-D. Utilization of DenseNet201 for diagnosis of breast abnormality. Mach. Vis. Appl. 30(7–8), 1135–1144. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00138-019-01042-8 (2019) Zhu, Y. et al. Application of convolutional neural network in the diagnosis of the invasion depth of gastric cancer based on conventional endoscopy. Gastrointest. Endosc. 89(4), 806-815.e1. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gie.2018.11.011 (2019) Gómez-Valverde, J. J. et al. Automatic glaucoma classification using color fundus images based on convolutional neural networks and transfer learning. Biomed. Opt. Express 10(2), 892. https://doi.org/10.1364/boe.10.000892 (2019) Byra, M. et al. Transfer learning with deep convolutional neural network for liver steatosis assessment in ultrasound images. Int. J. Comput. Assist. Radiol. Surg. 13(12), 1895–1903. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11548-018-1843-2 (2018) Harper, D. J. et al. Retinal analysis of a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease with multicontrast optical coherence tomography. Neurophotonics 7(01), 1. https://doi.org/10.1117/1.nph.7.1.015006 (2020) Ferreira, H. et al. Longitudinal normative OCT retinal thickness data for wild-type mice, and characterization of changes in the 3×Tg-AD mice model of Alzheimer’s disease. Aging 13(7), 9433–9454. https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.202916 (2021) Kilkenny, C., Browne, W. J., Cuthill, I. C., Emerson, M. & Altman, D. G. Improving bioscience research reporting: The ARRIVE guidelines for reporting animal research. PLoS Biol. 8(6), e1000412. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1000412 (2010) Guimarães, P. et al. Ocular fundus reference images from optical coherence tomography. Comput. Med. Imaging Graph. 38(5), 381–389. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compmedimag.2014.02.003 (2014) Deng, J. et al. ImageNet: A large-scale hierarchical image database. IEEE Conf. Comput. Vision Pattern Recognit. 2009, 248–255. https://doi.org/10.1109/cvpr.2009.5206848 (2009) Szegedy, C., Vanhoucke, V., Ioffe, S., Shlens, J. & Wojna, Z. Rethinking the inception architecture for computer vision. IEEE Conf. Comput. Vision Pattern Recognit. (CVPR) 2016, 2818–2826. https://doi.org/10.1109/cvpr.2016.308 (2016) Chollet, F. Keras. https://keras.io (2015) TensorFlow: A system for large-scale machine learning in Proc 12th USENIX Symp Oper Syst Des Implementation Rodrigues-Neves, A. C. et al. Retina and brain display early and differential molecular and cellular changes in the 3xTg-AD mouse model of alzheimer’s disease. Mol. Neurobiol. 58(7), 3043–3060. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12035-021-02316-x (2021) Chiquita, S. et al. Retinal thinning of inner sub-layers is associated with cortical atrophy in a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease: A longitudinal multimodal in vivo study. Alzheimer’s Res. Therapy 11(1), 90. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13195-019-0542-8 (2019) Chiquita, S. et al. The retina as a window or mirror of the brain changes detected in alzheimer’s disease: Critical aspects to unravel. Mol. Neurobiol. 56(8), 5416–5435. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12035-018-1461-6 (2019) Fu, Y., Rusznák, Z., Herculano-Houzel, S., Watson, C. & Paxinos, G. Cellular composition characterizing postnatal development and maturation of the mouse brain and spinal cord. Brain Struct. Funct. 218(5), 1337–1354. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00429-012-0462-x (2013) Download references This study was supported by The Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) through PTDC/EMD-EMD/28039/2017 and by FEDER-COMPETE through POCI-01-0145-FEDER-028039 Coimbra Institute for Biomedical Imaging and Translational Research (CIBIT) Institute for Nuclear Sciences Applied to Health (ICNAS) Coimbra Institute for Clinical and Biomedical Research (iCBR) João Martins & António Francisco Ambrósio Center for Innovative Biomedicine and Biotechnology (CIBB) Clinical Academic Center of Coimbra (CACC) Center for Neuroscience and Cell Biology (CNC) contributed to neural network models design and training completed an initial review and provided significant edits and additional content before the review and approval by the other authors contributed to the discussion and approved the manuscript The authors declare no competing interests Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations Download citation DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-18113-y Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content: a shareable link is not currently available for this article Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science Wildfire Today We just found out about this incident that occurred in Portugal. From Wikinews: The Russian Beriev 200 [air tanker] leased to the Portuguese Government suffered an accident last Thursday (July 6 The accident occurred after a refueling operation at the dam of Aguieira As the aerial firefighting aircraft took off at the end of the refueling maneuver in the water – designated as ‘scooping’ – its “left wing hit the top of the trees and the aircraft suffered some damage” to its fuselage director of the Cabinet of Prevention and Investigation of Accidents with Aircraft (GPIAA) to the Portuguese newspaper Correio da Manhã Thanks and a tip of the hat go out to Chuck Typos, let us know HERE, and specify which article. Please read the commenting rules before you post a comment Enter your email address to receive notifications of new posts by email Archive HOUSING Boost to underground resources and new exploration targets show Spanish mine's potential Vizcachitas growth potential could delay PFS each focused on a key discussion point for the mining sector brought to you by the Mining Journal Intelligence team priorities and preferences of 130+ mining investors and top factors influencing investment decisions in 2025 A detailed analysis of mining investment risks across 117 jurisdictions globally assessed across six risk categories and an industrywide survey The ESG Mining Company Index report provides an in-depth evaluation of ESG performance of 61 of the world's largest mining companies it assesses each company across 9 meticulously weighted indicators within 6 essential pillars Gain insights into decarbonisation trends and strategies from interviews with 20+ top mining executives and experts plus an industrywide survey Aspermont Media is a company registered in England and Wales Please enable JS and disable any ad blocker Latest UpdatesCountries Why Join?IL MagazineFree Daily E-LetterVideoOur ExpertsTestimonialsFAQsTopics Living overseas since 2011 Terry and her husband went on a housesitting assignment to Portugal in 2018 and they knew they’d found a place they wanted to call home There is the road less traveled that cuts through the center of the country for those looking for more adventure is the longest national road in Portugal at 739 kilometers One of the longest national roads in the world it is outdistanced only by Route 66 in the U.S below the Spanish border in the city of Chaves and ends at the city of Faro in the Algarve Driving the N2 without stopping along the way takes between six and seven hours but offers little to no enjoyment stopping briefly in some towns while lingering longer in others a charming city with a population of about 42,000 complemented by a medieval castle with gardens offering mountain views in the distance and restaurants dot the city while a well-preserved Roman bridge crosses the Tâmegariver Pick up an N2 passport at the nearby tourist office and have it stamped officially marking the start of this iconic road trip The passport book includes a map and suggests 35 stops along the route with indications of places to have the passport stamped as a nice keepsake Vidago and Pedras Salgadas are both known for their thermal waters and famous spas that date back to the 19th century Vidago has a former palace which has been turned into a pricey spa and hotel while Pedras Salgadas has an expansive park and natural area Since we found no free spots to access the thermal waters Vila Pouca de Aguiar was by far one of our favorite stops along the N2 one of the must-see’s here was a castle situated in the mountains we realized that the castle was nothing more than a small ruined tower and decided it was not worth hiking up to we stumbled upon a tiny village of granite homes where time had seemingly come to a standstill A small community of mostly elderly farmers lived in this village called “Castelo,” aptly named for the castle that once stood nearby we asked permission in Portuguese to take photographs has a population of 51,000 and is composed of stately old homes adorned with wrought-iron balconies A lively central plaza is lined with shops On the outskirts of the city is the House of Mateus a stately private mansion with extensive gardens open to the public by tour only The Mateus family has been producing quality wines for the past 75 years and the opulent house attests to their success Discover why we love a slower pace of life Portugal and info on other European countries in our daily postcard e-letter Simply enter your email address below and we’ll send you a FREE REPORT – Explore the Old World in Laidback Portugal The city of Porto is a popular destination for those who desire to see the spectacular views of the Douro Valley and river by the same name the lesser-known area called the Alto Douro sits virtually unnoticed in the center of the country Tourists here can take day trips along the Douro River Some offer round-trip voyages while others offer train rides back from Porto This was another favorite stop on our road trip Breathtaking views of lush vineyards climbing the impressive hills that surrounded the area Jaw-dropping scenery as far as our eyes could see I could almost taste the fragrant wines that filled the air but that indulgence would need to wait until later a city of 17,000 that sits alongside the Douro River The city once served as a vital component in the country’s wine production and the sale of port wine It was here that the wine was put into barrels and shipped to Vila Nova de Gaia Today the area is dotted with elegant mansions perched on hills terraced vineyards bearing signs with the names of the families who own them sits nestled among the terraced vineyards of the Douro rocky streets leading up to its medieval castle A few handsome churches still exist nearby while locals mingle with friends at nearby cafes The stunning Sanctuary of Our Lady of Remedios is where tourists climb the imposing baroque staircase (which has 686 steps) Those who make it to the top are rewarded with a panoramic view overlooking the area Castro Daire is a small village with a cobbled old town and a handful of churches and historic buildings to see historic town center that offers stately fountains and historic buildings A bustling cafe culture offers an animated mix of tourists and locals Not far from the city center is a large university that gives the city a youthful An adorable wooden bridge crossed the river as we watched ducks float by from the wooden walkway The streets were lined with traditional granite houses where locals peered out from open-shuttered windows wondering who the strangers in the neighborhood were Góis is a sleepy village offering a swimming area along the river surrounded by a nice family-friendly green space A riverfront cafe offers cold drinks or a place to chill on a hot summer afternoon Penacova features a family-friendly natural area and beach along the Mondego River Nearby windmills offer a picturesque remembrance of the past are hidden communities in the mountains where homes are constructed from schist a type of flat rock commonly found in the area Although there are 27 schist villages in Portugal We took a brief detour off the N2 to visit a few of these magical gems Some offered lodging for hikers passing through the area on marked trails but most did not offer anything in the way of restaurants or shopping Abrantes is a working-class Portuguese city of about 40,000 that sits on the hillside of the River Tagus Although the city has a castle and some historic remnants livable city with a large shopping mall and a modern vibe Penedo Furado is an area known for its river beach with a waterfall surrounded by green hills and mountains We passed through and moved on to our next destination Água Formosa was a pleasant surprise that took us away from the N2 for a short detour here locals live off the land as they did so long ago Geodesic Center of Portugal is a museum and monument that denotes the center of Portugal Nothing more than a quick stop—this is one of those touristy spots in which to stop and take a photo to prove we have been there Sertã is a municipality in the Castelo Branco district that sits along the Zêzere River this typical Portuguese city has an unusual five-cornered castle that offers views of the Serra da Estrela mountains Another favorite stop along the N2 is the city of Évora in the Alentejo region of Portugal the city of 56,000 has a charming old town the best-preserved Roman temple on the Iberian Peninsula an extensive wall that once served to protect it Évora has a youthful feel because of its large university was a jaw-dropping experience and certainly one of our favorite stops Step back in time and stroll along the streets of this medieval village and just imagine what life was like easily walkable road to see the remains of a castle and even a jail surrounded by breathtaking views of the Alentejo Our trip to Beja was a slight detour off the N2 to find accommodations for the night and to explore this other liveable city in the Alentejo region the city is surrounded by extensive plains of nothing as far as the eye can see Ferreira do Alentejo is a sleepy little village with a few shops and restaurants Right on the main street of the village is a small Aljustrel is another stop in the Alentejo region that was well worth the stop The town is famous for the Sanctuary of Bom Jesus which has 577 zig-zagging steps with 17 landings adorned with elaborate statues Upon closer look we found a road that reached most of the way and offered some of the most stunning views of the Alentejo region we had ever seen has a traditional cobbled town center with a few shops The 18th-century Church of Nossa Senhora da Conceição has a stunning interior with a golden altar that serves as a contrast to the blue- and white-tiled walls that surround it Almodôvar is a peaceful little village with a Roman bridge former Chinese-style palace in the center of town it was time to pass from the expansive plains of the Alentejo to the Atlantic coastline of the Algarve But first we would need to tackle the 365 curves of the Serra do Caldeirão a mountain pass which was not nearly as bad as we first thought This area offers nothing in the way of stops for breaks or food Algarvian village with a tiny town center with a church and park A handful of cafes and shops line the streets Faro is a traditional working-class city with less of a touristy feel than the rest of the Algarve it features a small marina surrounded by restaurants The large town center offers an array of cobbled streets lined with shops My final thoughts about the N2 are as follows: Because the N2 is an older road we often had to detour to larger towns to find food and lodging for the night While there are some rural accommodations along the way that provide a room in someone’s home These are not places visited by most tourists so we often found there was no English spoken and had to rely on our Portuguese For travelers with no knowledge of the language Even though it uses the Brazilian version of Portuguese The good news is that even the smallest towns in Portugal have grocery stores and most have a cafe where you can stop for a quick meal they serve as the perfect place to pick up snacks Taking the road less traveled is quite often a rewarding experience and the scenery—from both our travels and the interactions we had with the people who are always warm and wonderful The Best Places to Live in Portugal From $1,600 a Month Portugal Itinerary: How to Spend 7 Days in Portugal Is Portugal a Safe Place to Live? Plan to honour Estado Novo founder in home town called insult to victims of regime Portugal’s parliament has voted to denounce a planned museum dedicated to the former dictator António de Oliveira Salazar Leonel Gouveia, the mayor of Salazar’s hometown of Santa Comba Dão in central Portugal, announced the plan to create the museum last month. Critics said it could attract people sympathetic to Salazar, who ruled Portugal with an iron fist for more than 30 years. Portugal’s leftwing majority parliament said on Wednesday that the museum, to be built in an old school next to Salazar’s former home, would be an “insult to the memory of victims of the dictatorship”. Parliament asked “all public and private entities not to support the project directly or indirectly”. Salazar rose to power in 1932 following a military coup four years earlier, and ruled until 1968. He died in Lisbon in 1970. A military uprising toppled his Estado Novo, or New State, regime in 1974, putting an end to 13 years of colonial wars in Africa. It is not the first time authorities in Santa Comba Dão have come under fire for publicising the town’s links to the dictator. In 2012 the mayor at the time, João Lourenço, failed in an attempt to have a wine called Salazar’s Memories registered as a trademark. the trademark has already been registered and we are studying other products to associate the brand with," a spokesman for Santa Comba Dao town hall said.But the move has drawn criticism from those who argue that the memories of oppression and hardship the Portuguese endured during nearly five decades of dictatorship should not be handled so lightly."I believe this is a pretty unfortunate idea it would only be suitable if the wine was as sour as his politics were back in the dark ages of Portugal's fascism," Raimundo Narciso head of Portuguese anti-fascist movement "Don't Erase the Memory" told Reuters.Santa Comba Dao mayor Joao Lourenco recognises the controversy but says the Salazar brand is a magnet that can bring much-needed cash to the region at a time of a severe economic crisis and is nothing to be ashamed of."We want to link a name known all over the world with the products of our region," Lourenco was quoted as saying in local media "At a time of such a serious crisis we need to grab everything that can help us get through the difficulties."Born in 1889 in the rural centre of Portugal Salazar ruled Portugal with an iron first and died in 1970 four years before the regime was toppled in the bloodless "Carnation" revolution he was voted the "Greatest Portuguese of All Time" in a television poll that provoked an uproar by opponents and heated academic debates on his role and legacy in the country's history.The Dao region wines are known for their robustness and relatively strong alcohol content cheeses and other products are expected to be produced under the "Salazar" label in the future.Reporting By Daniel Alvarenga; Editing by Angus MacSwan Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab © 2025 Reuters. All rights reserved A selection of photos from some of the biggest news that you might have missed this week. Shareholders have one month to accept €367m buyout offer Nicolas Saverys launched an offer on Wednesday to buy out the 51% stake his family vehicle Saverex does not already own in Exmar NV, a gas shipowner and infrastructure player listed in Brussels. Shareholders have until 6 July to accept the cash offer of €12.1 ($12.92) per share and €2.48 per share option. This represented a premium of nearly 25% to Exmar’s share price when the intention to take the company private was first announced on 3 April. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn YouTube Instagram Your data on TradeWinds TradeWinds is part of DN Media Group AS From November 1st DN Media Group is responsible for controlling your data on TradeWinds We use your data to ensure you have a secure and enjoyable user experience when visiting our site. You can read more about how we handle your information in our privacy policy DN Media Group is the leading news provider in the shipping, seafood, and energy industries, with a number of English- and Norwegian-language news publications across a variety of sectors. Read more about DN Media Group here TradeWinds is part of NHST Global Publications AS and we are responsible for the data that you register with us and the data we collect when you visit our websites We use cookies in a variety of ways to improve your experience such as keeping NHST websites reliable and secure personalising content and ads and to analyse how our sites are being used For more information and how to manage your privacy settings please refer to our privacy and cookie policies A Portuguese mayor hoping his town could cash in on its historic ties to former dictator Antonio Salazar has lost a bid to have a wine called "Salazar's Memories" registered as a trademark Portuguese media say the national intellectual property authority went sour on the idea finding the proposed name at odds with modern values "Salazar is mostly thought of as a dictator.. and in today's democracy the registering of this brand would undoubtedly violate the founding principles that guide our justice system," the trademark office was quoted as saying in the Publico newspaper who ruled with an iron fist for nearly four decades The mayor said he had "neither love nor hate" for the man and his attempt to make the dictator-themed wine was about trying to boost jobs in a country mired in economic crisis "Salazar is a strong name that everyone associates with Santa Comba Dao If we can use that to create jobs and energize our towns Lourenco has since last spring been trying to develop a line of Salazar-themed wines and local products including "Salazar's Hills" and "Salazar's Vines" There has been a great deal of controversy in Portugal around the possible establishment of a museum centered on the figure of António de Oliveira Salazar who was dictator of the Lusitanian country between 1932 and 1968.The regime was established in 1926 in a coup d’état that brought down the first republic and brought the military Manuel Gomes da Costa and António Óscar Carmona to power was first finance minister in the military dictatorship initiated the period of the regime known as Estado Novo an authoritarian one-party dictatorship that lasted until 1974 when the Carnation Revolution ended the regime and restored democracy violence was used systematically and Portugal was continually rocked by political crimes.The plan to build a museum on Salazar was announced last month by Leonel Gouveia a town of twelve thousand inhabitants that gave birth to the dictator in 1889 even came the Portuguese Parliament’s vote on a motion expressing strong condemnation of the project.The motion comes after strong protests were raised especially by former political prisoners of the regime and anti-fascist activists promoted by the left wing of Parliament and approved by a majority vote (in Portugal the majority is center-left: during the vote the center-right oppositions abstained) states that the museum would be “an offense to the memory of the victims of the dictatorship” and an “outrage to democracy.” The municipality of Santa Comba Dão (Mayor Gouveia is a local member of the Socialist Party of Portugal the same one that is in government and the same one that voted against the museum project) of course lets it be known that the museum which would be called “Centro Interpretativo do Estado Novo,” is not intended to celebrate the figure of Salazar and would only be a history museum but the opponents fear that the facility could become a destination for nostalgic people the subject of fascism in Portugal is very much in the news given that it is only forty-five years since the end of the regime A petition addressed to the prime minister of Portugal and at the moment it has reached more than 17.000 signatures: the signatories “aware of what the dictatorship of the Estado Novo was in their own name and in memory of the thousands of victims of the regime of which Salazar was the main culprit the most vehement rejection against the construction of the Salazar museum recently announced by the mayor of Santa Comba Dão.” 204 former political prisoners of the regime had written a letter to Council President Costa himself expressing their strong condemnation of the project “This project,” the former political prisoners wrote “far from trying to enlighten the population and especially the younger generations about what the fascist regime was it is prefigured as a tool in the service of revisionism and as a pilgrimage destination of the regime overthrown on April 25” [ed note: the Carnation Revolution broke out on April 25 “When in many countries,” the letter continues “there is a resurgence of fascist or fascist-inspired forces our country needs not instruments of propaganda of fascism (which the Constitution of the Republic expressly prohibits) but means of democratic pedagogy that do not let the crimes of Salazarist fascism be forgotten and preserve the memory of its victims.” Pictured: António de Oliveira Salazar in 1940 Read today's Portuguese stories delivered to your email The artist's most recent installation was placed in the Vimieiro cemetery where the Portuguese dictator is buried.  The Portuguese artist Bordallo II has covered the grave of António Oliveira Salazar, in the cemetery of the parish of Vimieiro, in Santa Comba Dão, with a giant "anti-fascist" medicine box. "Liberdade", as Bordallo II calls the medicine, is an "anti-fascist probiotic" of "25 mg" and with "50 capsules", in reference to the 25 April Revolution and the 50 Chega deputies, elected by the Portuguese on March 10, who are now part of the Assembly of the Republic. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Bordalo II (@b0rdalo_ii) those who have tyrannical and anti-democratic ambitions begin precisely by attacking freedom – this complex concept that crosses several areas of our lives and without which we will not have a fair society Freedom is fundamental for each of us and for the well-being of all" the artist begins by writing in a post shared on his Instagram account adding that "we cannot be distracted and take freedom for granted" we have to defend it and exercise it every day April 25th also serves to remind us of this Defending freedom means respecting differences and allowing the expression of free thought and creativity and provide a starting point for reflection" he highlights before ending with "April 25th ALWAYS We appreciate that not everyone can afford to pay for our services but if you are able to we ask you to support The Portugal News by making a contribution – no matter how small You can change how much you give or cancel your contributions at any time There is no justification for defacing someone's grave The object should be removed and disposed of but the dead have a right to rest in peace and not have fanatics interfere with their resting place Very good medication for all of Europe and the whole world Do not forget to take it and never forget the past! Far right is a dangerous monster luring to attack our freedom and liberties( e.g My wife's father had to do the two years in France and then could take the rest of the family out of Portugal But if I was walking through a peaceful resting place among the marble as I did after my wife's parents had returned to Portugal and later passed away....and I saw this....I would say But that's the common denominator in artists even if it means getting it with public vandalism Send us your comments or opinion on this article Reaching over 400,000 people a week with news about Portugal Portugal’s CTM Mirandela triumphed over Czech club HB Ostrov in the opening leg of the Stage three of the Europe Cup Women Annamaria ERDELYI delivered two wins against Veronika POLAKOVA and Zdena BLASKOVA Mariana SANTA COMBA added the third point with a hard-fought five-game victory over Jana VASENDOVA BLASKOVA secured the sole point for HB Ostrov by defeating Ines MATOS We seized the opportunity to secure an advantage before the return leg in Czechia,” said ERDELYI It’s great that Mariana managed to beat VASENDOVA The return leg is scheduled for February 16th This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks The action you just performed triggered the security solution There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page Sign In Register Street parties in Barcelona celebrating the victory of the city's football team in the UEFA Champions League final turned violent early yesterday and at least 18 people were hospitalised Police said more than 80 people were arrested after revellers attacked officers with bottles The scuffles broke out hours after Barcelona beat Manchester United 3-1 at Wembley Stadium in England on Saturday night About 50,000 people flooded the streets of Barcelona to celebrate A police officer was among those hospitalised AP photographs show plain-clothes police officers who were wearing Barcelona jerseys to blend in with the crowds but they didn't require hospitalisation and were treated at the scene by paramedics for cuts and bruises An unnamed 17-year-old woman died accidentally when she slipped and fell into a deep hole beside a fountain while celebrating the win in the north-western town of Santa Comba local newspaper La Voz de Galicia reported Football fans had poured shampoo into the fountain to create bubbles which concealed an uncovered manhole that led to the fountain's pump The team arrived in Barcelona with the Champions League trophy with tens of thousands of fans lining the streets to celebrate the victory The festivities culminated at the 98,000-seat Camp Nou Stadium View the discussion thread. Paying landowners to let forests grow is promoted by the UN as a viable way to fight global warming but experts first have to puzzle out how to insure trees against going up in smoke owners will get carbon credits to slow the destruction of tropical forests But fires caused by lightning - along with other hazards such as storms insects and illegal logging - are a big risk for insurers and investors A new UN climate treaty to include granting forest owners tradeable carbon credits will be discussed by about 190 nations in Poznan The credits could be worth billions of dollars for those agreeing not to cut down trees Burning forests to clear land for farming releases about a fifth of all the greenhouse gases blamed for causing climate change the carbon stored as they grew would be released "From a formal point of view insurance shouldn't be a problem," said Wojciech Galinsky who works on UN projects to promote green investment in developing countries "If Tina Turner's legs can be insured But there is wide disagreement on how to assess the risks under the new UN treaty Forest owners want full access to credits as fast as possible But insurers suggest that half be retained in buffer funds in case forests vanish in a few decades "How much land-managers will see of the price is what the excitement is about," said Frances Seymour head of the Centre for International Forestry Research in Indonesia Placing a value on forests could give developing nations in Africa Latin America and Asia a big incentive to do more to slow rising greenhouse gas emissions But the economic slowdown may make rich nations reluctant to take part please register for free or log in to your account.