The ground approaches at 125 mph - that’s an incredible 55 metres per second.

Everything around you is blue. For a few short moments you lose all notion of space and time. Eventually your body stabilises. You look down below, and there is Évora, looking almost like a small village.

When it all seems as if you’re going keep falling and falling, there’s a brief jolt caused by the opening of the parachute, which is done manually. The rest of the descent is smooth and lasts another fifteen minutes - time to admire every detail of the landscape.

At the end, the impact of landing is like jumping off a stool.

Évora, with an airfield that hosts the biennial Portugal Air Show, is one of the most popular venues for an introductory parachuting course, and the site of the headquarters of the Portuguese Parachuting Federation.

But if you just want to spend a day with a difference, the Évora schools offer 'tandem' facilities, consisting of jumping when tied to an instructor, so the only necessary preparation is a fifteen-minute briefing. So overcome your fear and fulfil a dream!