António Lopes (Miguel Guilherme) and Margarida Marques (Rita Blanco) are a married couple that have emigrated in the 1960s from Ermidão, a (fictional) small village inland, to a (also fictional) working-class suburb in Lisbon, along with her mother Hermínia () and their three children, Isabel (), Tóni () and Carlos () seeking a better life away from the hardships of an impoverished countryside.