Young accelerator physicists converged on the Portuguese coastal town of Sesimbra in September for the 2002 CERN Accelerator School (CAS) introductory course on particle accelerators. Organized by CAS together with the Laboratório de Instrumentação e Física Experimental de Partículas of Lisbon (LIP), the course covered the basics of accelerator and particle physics, concluding with a series of lectures entitled “Putting it all together”. Thirteen European specialists, chosen for their teaching experience, made up the lecture team, while CERN and LIP shared the organizational responsibilities.