A suspension bridge, fog rolling in off the bay, a hilly city with trolleys complete with clanging bells, a relatively liberal population and rainbow flags hanging from windows here and there…..……..is this Lisbon or that other city by the bay? Oh right……people are speaking Portuguese ~ must be Lisbon, the “San Francisco of Portugal”!
Lisbon was the final stop on the Western European leg of our year of travel and we tried to soak in all of the old world ambiance we could.
We attended a dinner and Fado music evening at a restaurant named oFaia. The restaurant was a good twenty minute walk uphill through the Chiado neighborhood. Once we got away from the crush of people ogling Christmas lights outside a department store the stroll through the neighborhood set us up for a beautiful evening. Three separate sets performed with intense emotion by three different female vocalists who were accompanied by two amazingly talented guitarists was a wonderful introduction to Fado. Traditionally in a minor key, this melancholy music can be full of sadness and heartache even when celebrating the good life. Fado as an art form is one of the oldest in Portugal and the restaurant has hosted Fado performances for more than 70 years. You can almost feel the emotions oozing out of the bricks. The music spoke directly to our travel weariness AND sadness about finishing this portion of the trip. As usual, vocal music was able to reflect the feelings in our hearts with vibrant color that is hard to translate into words.
Much like San Francisco, Lisbon has suffered from major earthquakes and the accompanying tsunamis and fires that followed those quakes. The most recent “big one” was in 1755 and a majority of the architecture of the city dates from construction after that devastating event. The damage from that quake is plainly evident in one of the churches we toured. Pillars damaged by falling debris and smoke stains in many places from fire mark this church as a survivor. The rebuilding process was lengthy, but at the time Portugal was immensely wealthy so the King and his minister Pombol developed a plan for recovery that resulted in the city as it is today. Expensive ceramic tiles decorate buildings throughout the city and help keep buildings insulated from the summer heat. The main square where the royal palace once stood is a now a wide open space to gather and do some great people watching.
In addition to a metro, the clanging trolleys and a bus system, Lisbon has several historic funiculars that slowly but surely take you up the steep hills. The fun and rumbly vehicles allow you to bypass endless stairways to easily reach the upper neighborhoods of the city. A funicular is a set of two cars connected by a cable and driven by a counterbalance weight system. The weight of the car going downhill pulls the other car upwards. The counterbalance system distinguishes the funicular from an ordinary incline elevator that only has one car……something you now know in case you ever need to answer a trivia question. These particular funiculars were upgraded to be electrically driven in the 1920s. We thought they were cool…no matter the engineering particulars.
We had a couple of amazing meals ~ one was a seafood stew called a cataplana that was also served in a vessel called a cataplana (confusing but true) ~ and was some of the best seafood we’ve ever tasted. It was difficult not to pick up the cataplana and drink the broth….but we figured that would be rude so we restrained ourselves. The Portuguese invented Port, so of course we had Port and chocolate for dessert that evening!
Christmas was everywhere in Lisbon. From the two Christmas markets we could see out of our AirBnB windows to the lovely decorations hung around the city. Vendors roasting chestnuts were on every corner. Santa and his municipal band passed us as we were on a walking tour. At least one other band walked by our house in a Christmas procession that we only caught the last part of. The biggest Christmas tree in Europe (supposedly) was in the main square by the historic harbor/waterfront, provoking a large “ooh/ahh” and round of applause when it lit up at precisely 5:30pm.
All in all we enjoyed Lisbon and felt like we could use a little more exploration time with a trip to the beach and Porto included, so yes we would visit again. Would we live there? Probably not, but maybe if we could learn Portuguese in less than 20 years.
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