IF YOU thought that Portugal was all Algarve, Mateus Rose and Jose Mourinho you couldn’t be more wrong.

They may be on their uppers now – the crunch has come because the government has failed to push through its austerity measures – but Portugal is a little country with a very big past.

Hard to believe it today but at one point they were the world’s biggest economic, military and political power, running an empire that included Brazil, Goa and respectable portions of Africa and Malaysia. Portuguese sailors may even have been the first Europeans to set foot on Australia and New Zealand, so far did they roam around the globe. Certainly their explorer Magellan was the first person to circumnavigate it.

Not bad for a country that even now is only 35,000 square miles, with just the 10 million or so residents.

But punching above its weight comes naturally to Portugal, probably because of all those years when it had to fight off the ill-intentions of its Iberian neighbour, Spain. They’ve supplied two Popes; Damasus I and John XXI and their football team, captained by Cristiano Ronaldo, is ranked eighth in the world. Their casino in Estoril – eat your heart out, Monte Carlo – is the biggest in Europe. So is their Vasco da Gama bridge in Lisbon, stretching an amazing 56,381 feet.

Vicky Campbell, a travel consultant at the Thomas Cook travel agent on Bournemouth’s Richmond Hill, said Portugal had many attractions.

“Portugal is most popular for family holidays. It’s a short flight, just two hours. The resorts are quite varied. They cater for beach holidays, and it’s also popular with golfers,” she said.

In Portugal they have bullfights but it’s illegal to kill the beasts, their legal system is primarily based on the German one, and in 1761 they were the first colonial power to abolish slavery. Their last king, Manuel II was deposed in 1910 and spent his life in exile in Twickenham.

And no wonder when you consider that they are also our oldest international buddies; they even live on the same time-zone as us. Forget all that Special Relationship malarkey, we’ve been mates with Portugal since 1386, when their representative popped along to Windsor to sign what’s acknowledged as the oldest international alliance.

“It is cordially agreed that if, in time to come, one of the kings or his heir shall need the support of the other, or his help, and in order to get such assistance applies to his ally in lawful manner, the ally shall be bound to give aid and succour to the other,” says the treaty.

Does that include £4billion? Time and the EU will tell.