Picking Up the Pace in Lisbon

     “Let’s spend our second week in Portugal in the city,” I suggested to Art.  “How about an “Airnb” in the center of Lisbon?”  He agreed that would be the perfect balance to our first week walking through the vineyards of the Douro Valley.

      I love browsing the “Airnb” website imagining living in various apartments and houses around the world, avoiding hotels and pretending not to be a tourist.  A photo entitled “Charming Apartment in Central Lisbon” immediately drew me in.  It was of an elegant long living room with high ceilings, a mirrored wall behind an off white slip covered sofa, a dark wood polished coffee table and two white barrel chairs, high ceilings, four tall windows with decorative wrought iron balconies overlooking the street, brown weathered looking wooden shutters, and oriental area rugs on a hardwood floor. The rest of the photos showed original stone walls in the dining room and bedroom contrasted with a sleek kitchen, modern appliances and black granite counter tops and a black and white tiled bathroom with large glass shower stall and traditional white bathroom fixtures.  Someone had decorated this apartment with the perfect balance of antique and modern.  Browsing other choices seemed pointless.  This was it!  Luckily it was not out of our price range and I booked it. 

       One way of arriving in Lisbon  is by cruise ship down the Rio Tejo from the Atlantic Ocean past the landmark Padrão dos Descobrimentos, the statue commemorating Henry the Navigator and Portuguese exploration. Art and I did this 41 years ago. Before we were married, after finishing our jobs in Paraguay, we boarded an Italian Costa line ship from Buenos Aires to Naples which made a stop in Lisbon.  Neither one of us remember much about Lisbon except for this statue. 

        We arrived this time to Lisbon at Santa Apolónia train station from Coimbra, where we had stopped overnight to visit the Universidade de Coimbra. In Coimbra we found ourselves in the middle of the Queima das Feitas, Burning of Ribbons, a traditional festivity of students celebrating graduation by burning ribbons.  Originating in Coimbra, this ritual is popular now in all universities in Portugal but only in May. It is considered one of the biggest student festivities in Europe, lasts 8 days, and includes parades, sports activities, gala balls, and other public events.  Queima das Feitas was an unexpected bonus as it is the most important week of the year in Coimbra. 

     Fado music also originated in Coimbra at the university.  Fado is a kind of popular urban folk music of mournful and lyrical songs, which express longings or saudades.  We went to the Centro Cultural de Fado, Fado Cultural Center, in Coimbra to hear these lyrical ballads sung by students and accompanied by a musician playing a twelve steel stringed guitar strung in six courses comprising two strings each.  To me it sounded like a gorgeous Renaissance lute or mandolin.

     We went everywhere in Portugal by train and were amazed what an organized, clean, easy, inexpensive way this is to travel.  Trains operate on time to the minute.  An added surprise were the friendly and helpful conductors who even spoke some English.  Once we figured out the system of taking a slip of paper from a machine at the ticket office in the big train stations and waiting for our number to pop up on a big screen to buy tickets, we learned that we could travel for half price!  There are definite advantages to being “seniors” even in foreign countries. Our train trips were never more than a few hours as Portugal is small.  We tried First class travel on our journey to Lisbon. The compartments are very sleek looking, with elegant dark blue upholstered seats, deep carpeting, insulated curtains that block out the sun, and an air of hushed silence that seems to announce “yes, you are in first class!”  There was even Wi-Fi on board but I wasn’t about to be distracted from the scenery that was continually changing from pastoral and hilly to flat and more populated as we approached Lisbon.

      Bernardo met us at 4:15 p.m. at our flat on Rua Sapateiros 86 in Baixa.  The taxi driver who took us from the station, knew right where to go although it is not a main thoroughfare. He drove down several blocks of a narrow cobblestone street barely wide enough for two cars. Sapateiros means shoemakers and this is one of many streets in a part of Lisbon that was rebuilt after the earthquake of 1755 by the Marquis de Pombal.  I learned that this is where craftsmen and artisans lived and worked.  Parallel streets are Rua da Plata, Rua dos Douradores, Rua dos Fanqueiros, and Rua dos Correios – names for silversmiths, goldsmiths, clothiers and postal workers.

      A first glimpse of the “charming flat” confirmed that I had hit the jackpot on Airnb.  The living room looked exactly like the pictures online.  Bernardo, gave us a “walk through” and mentioned that the flat belongs to Bruno Ribeiro, a handsome (I looked him up on Google) opera tenor who performs in major opera houses and concert halls around the world.  He rents his apartment in this coveted area of Lisbon to tourists like us.  “Opera star!” we exclaimed in complete amazement.  “But we love opera.  This must have been meant to be,” I exclaimed.  I’m not sure Bernardo knew quite what to make of us and our enthusiasm for opera.

      Bernardo left us with a ring of keys including an old, very large brass one, that opened the antique lock of the tall wooden double front door of the flat. This flat was to become our home for the next six days. In the kitchen we found a bottle of red wine, and an assortment of pates, cheeses, and crackers and toasted our first night in the opera singer’s flat, reenergized to begin exploring.  I must admit that all was perfect until the next morning when we went to make eggs for breakfast and could not find a single knob on the black sleek glass stove top nor could we figure out how the dishwasher turned on as there were no dials or knobs on that either!  Yes, we were in an old apartment but with a kitchen so modern that we Americans couldn’t even turn on an appliance!  A call to the agency had Rita on the phone explaining to Art how to use the appliances.  I decided that perhaps we Americans are not quite up to the most modern European standards.

       Stepping out of our apartment building we met the city on our doorstep.  One block over is Rua Augusta, the pedestrian shopping street, teeming from morning till night with shoppers, tourists, outdoor cafes, and entertainers such as the stationary, real life statue figures, and musicians playing for money. (I couldn’t help but remember that Rua Augusta was the most popular shopping street in São Paulo, Brazil.  It was near the American Consulate where my father worked when we lived there in the early 1960’s when I was in high school.) 

      Walking several more blocks we found quiet cobblestone streets closed to pedestrian traffic with dozens of indoor/outdoor restaurants all serving Portuguese menus. No chain restaurants here. A Portuguese menu has a dozen choices of fresh fish including all kinds of sea urchins and shell fish, as well as lots of meat like pork, beef, or lamb with vegetables, boiled or crispy fried potatoes, fresh salads with green leaf lettuce and tomatoes topped with vinegar and olive oil, and crusty bread. Every meal is accompanied by a whole or half bottle of wine or an ice cold cerveza or beer.  The sobremesas or desserts could be a traditional flan or caramel custard, lots of fresh fruit, or pastries and cakes followed by the popular cafezinho or demitasse strong expresso coffee.  Food was simple, but so fresh and delicious.

       We are fans of the on/off double-decker city bus tours that have become popular around the world.  In Dubai even though we lived there, we took visitors on the Blue Bus to get an overview of a spread-out city. In Buenos Aires we took the open-air bus tour and spent a month going back to all the places we had seen along the way. Lisbon, with three million people, and so many different neighborhoods was the perfect place to buy a two-day ticket on the Yellow Bus. We took one route one day and a different route the next catching glimpses of Lisbon from one end to the other. A highlight remains the Museu do Azulejos or the Tile Museum which we went back to.  Portugal is known for it’s beautiful tile work and the museum has collected tiles that date back 500 years or more. 

      One day we walked to Rossio Train station to take the commuter train to Sintra towards the coast.  Here we spent the day overwhelmed by all the tour groups walking through the Palácio Nacional de Sintra.  A 4 km ride on a public bus took us up a dramatic one-way, steep windy road to the whimsical, multicolored Sintra: Palácio da Pena.  Built in 1885 for Ferdinand, II, this palace looks like it belongs in a magical fantasy world.

     Our stay in Lisbon was short but by the last day we knew where to find the supermarket and what to buy for breakfast, stopping on the way home at one of the many bakeries to pick up two large fresh croissants to have with our morning coffee.  What could be better?  We got to know our neighborhood, passing the same shops and restaurants each day.

     Although Portugal is viewed as one of the poorer countries in Europe, Lisbon is a gem. It is older historically that any other city in Europe dating back to the time of Julius Caesar. For us it seemed a vibrant place with a delightful mix of the old and the new.  The Portuguese are likeable, gentle, and friendly people who are completely grounded in their very long history and a love of home and country.  Closing the door to the flat the morning we left, I felt I had been part of this city…if only for a very short time.