Up and down hills and stairs, through sidestreets that barely, but convincingly, straddle cars, past garbage piled on corners, over the endless piles of shit filling in the cracks in the cobblestones, the cracks in the soles of our shoes. We walked ceaselessly across Lisbon. There was always more to see, but over the course of several days staying there I don’t know that we ever came close to making sense of any of it.
Situated at the mouth of the Tagus River and the Atlantic, Lisbon remains a city of eclectic intersections: old world and progressive europe, aristocratic avenues and drunkards’ piss alleys, a young artist’s haven and an old fisherman’s lonely nostalgia.
Even with its surface similarities to San Francisco – the ersatz Golden Gate bridge span, the cable car-like trams that wend their way through the streets – it proved a hard nut to crack. Parks were fairly empty, buildings sat broken and haunted, but at night the bars, restaurants and cafes swelled with people.
In the end, we learned to take pleasure in the simplest things: a bag of stellar cookies rich with egg yolks at Quinoa Bakery, a half-decent lunch from a seasonal menu at Kaffeehaus, and finally, after weeks, an honest to god plate of some fucking salad greens. It’s true, there is a little bit of San Francisco to this place after all.
I’m going to dispense with chronology, otherwise I’ll never put this stuff up. So let’s start in the middle.
Porto was our first stop in Portugal. Our first impression was that we were no longer in Madrid – and that meant that things could only improve. But once we reached the historical center it quickly charmed us. I’d sooner spend 5 years in Porto than 5 days in Madrid. It’s a rough-and-tumble port town, like Naples, that’s past its prime but with a worn and weary elegance that’s seductive.
Porto is a very walkable city. Follow the narrow cobblestone streets past tumbledown art deco facades and you can wind your way up and over hills or jump on the streetcar and take it out to the mouth of the Douro River where it meets the Atlantic.
Lovely painted tiles, azulejos, lend character to almost every surface that isn’t covered with graffiti.
The food was marvelous in that there was flavor and it appeared to be cooked. Again, we had just come from Madrid. The pastries and confections rival french and italian for sheer variety and this flaky, buttery fan of dough filled with seasoned ground meat practically bears the impression of our satisfied smiles at the other end. We had our first taste of a dense and moist traditional portuguese bread at the Mercado do Bolhao and later that night enjoyed a simple, but lovely meal at Casa Aleixo where grandmas wrapped their arms around our shoulders and made sure we ate every last bite of alheira, octopus and pork.
We traveled up the Douro by slow, swaying train and stayed in the tiniest of towns called Pinhoa. Our hotel was more reminiscent of an industrial garage on the Balkan Riviera than riverfront in Portugal, but we were well fed and, really, for this trip, that was better than average.
One thing I was completely unprepared for was the language. The Portuguese spoken by locals sounded unlike anything I’d heard elsewhere, more measured and throaty than the slippery, rapid-fire tongue of their Spanish neighbors, like it was akin to some dialect in the Eastern Bloc. Thankfully, there’s always a bit of entertainment to find in language usage when traveling abroad. In past trips to Italy, we made acquaintance with the denim brand GAS, that offered underwear bearing the crystal-bedazzled label “GAS” on the backside. And the airport fast-food counter that beckoned customers with the slogan “Freshness is Protagonist!” On our train leaving Porto for Lisbon, we were amazed to find a package of dark choco-cookies called Filipinos. Is the name derived from a misinterpretation of girl scout Tagalongs as Tagalog? I have no idea. But one bite and it was clear the name was the most interesting part about them.
Well, here it comes. Rain outside my window. Tomato and grape farmers, picking for hours before the sun even rose, are scrambling to pull the harvest off the vines before the rains can rob the fruit of all the hope they put on their crops. And with the harvest and the rain, autumn sets in motion.
I love this time of year. The way the sun can illuminate otherwise dull city streetscapes like Edward Hopper paintings. The smell of wet earth, chimney smoke and roasts in the oven. It’s the season where we naturally turn inward and, clearly, I am at home in that more solitary clime.
It was a rather muted summer, but as I look forward to fall, here’s a look back at the last couple months from a new, but old camera that was far too complex for me:
From the sleepy city…
…To the mountains.
