I sit reading this in a village in central Portugal, and I have a very different perspective than the OP. What I see are vast numbers of uninhabited, decaying

I sit reading this in a village in central Portugal, and I have a very different perspective than the OP. What I see are vast numbers of uninhabited, decaying or wholly uninhabitable structures. I see 50+ age men loitering around the town, drinking beer at 10am, and playing scratch-offs. On the roads I see absolutely bonkers drivers who have old cars which obviously have binary gas pedals. They go super slow for no reason, but at some point they flip the switch and drive like maniacs, blind curves be damned. These cars, by the way, are 80s and 90s soot-spewing diesels. They start fires more often than mother nature does. Sometimes it's because they are crazy, but usually it's because they want to clear a natural forest so they can grow fast timber like eucalyptus (which greatly exacerbates the fire risk since they are so grow fast and are highly flammable). VAT here is 23%. This thing about foreigners not paying tax is bs. Locals widely use a tax scheme whereby they can make tax claims on their purchases, getting some of it back. Without that tax number, you pay the full 23%. And if you want to use a visa to live and work here, you will pay an incredible tax rate that's even higher than Netherlands (which is already 20-50% higher than the US). Many of the "rich" foreigners coming in and buying property are Brazilians, some of whom got their riches through corruption or outright criminal activities. There is also still good old fashioned corruption here. The laws regarding many topics such as land habitation permits vary by jurisdiction, and the common way to deal with them is to get cozy with the mayor or other important figures. Take them to dinner, buy them some gifts, play nice. You can be completely legal, but if you don't play the game right you can be denied a permit. This is all pretty bad news, but that's not to say that Portugal is bad or Portuguese are bad. There's a lot to like here. There's a lot of charm, a lot of history, some great beaches and villages and mountainous areas. The climate can be nice, but imo it's not great and rapidly getting worse (many days this summer over 40C, and so, so many fires). My takeaway is, to put it very bluntly, that the average Portuguese person is quite ignorant. They either don't know a lot of important things, or they know a bit but don't care (because they don't know why it's important). It feels like time stopped here in the mid 1900s. Porgugal was once the king of the world. Then it had a several hundred year decline, reaching bottom in the latter 1900s. The younger generation learned it was better to move elsewhere to earn money, so progress ceased locally. But 10 years or so ago, the younger people who are now middle age began coming back, starting businesses, and revitalizing the country. It's going to take a few more decades before Portugal reaches the point where it is not a poor shadow of its former self. I'm not sure it will ever make it though.