There’s a saying Portuguese people have for the key places
in their country; Lisbon shows off, Coimbra studies and Porto works. Our stay
in Portugal took us to each of these towns.
1.
The Exhibitionist
Lisbon looked more like Sydney than anywhere else I had seen
since leaving home. That was my first impression at least. I knew these big
western European cities weren’t going to offer me anything too otherworldly,
but it took me a little while to warm to Lisbon.
The city has two key faces; small winding alleys, stairs and
archways, and picturesque apartment buildings, and alternatively the more
modern grid set up, a comparatively boring consequence of Age of Reason town
planning. We rented a great apartment in the former.
Lisbon was once the explorer’s capital of the world, and
many explorers left from Lisbon’s port in the 14/15/1600’s to see what was at
the furthest reaches of the world. What resulted was the colonisation of large
parts of South America and even parts of Asia (such as Macau, where Rin and I
went to see the Portuguese heritage last year, and even East Timor). That’s why
Portuguese is the official language in 9 countries (such as Brazil) and the 7th
most common language in the world. Pretty crazy that the way people are speaking all over
the world comes from a country that is so small.
In Lisbon we saw the famous monument to Portugal’s early
explorers (up top). It was cool to see, but the funny thing about this was that Mum and
Dad came here a few years ago and raved about the Christopher Columbus
monument, so I was eager to see Chris in all his stone carved glory, but it
turned out the monument is for a Portuguese man named Henry the Navigator.
Absolutely nothing to do with Christopher Columbus, but a cool monument. (Oh
those coach tours…Joke I heard is that Tour Guides lie more than Politicians or
Lawyers put together.)
Here we took a ride on the trams which are iconic to the
city, and visited the impressive Lisbon Cathedral. We also went to a bakery
that has been making the custard tart, a Portuguese specialty, since the 1800’s.
We ate custard tarts everyday in Portugal but these were by far the best.
Portugal is bankrupt. And maybe that’s why Lisbon is kinda
grungy now. It isn’t the safest place, and I got offered drugs on the street as
freely as in Morocco. There are homeless people sleeping on the street on
subway ventilation grates.
Another thing that stood out in Portugal but
especially Lisbon was the graffiti. And, it was actually pretty amazing, the
best I’ve seen in the world. (Of course there was also a lot of uncreative blob
letter stuff that nobody wants to look at.) Despite the grunge there was more
than enough superficiality to match it, and despite the country being in debt
the quality of life is still pretty dam good.
There seems to be a funny little irony in the world right
now where there are poor rich countries and rich poor countries. For example,
if China (Mexico, Korea, Brazil) wanted to build a super highway from one end
of the country to another they could get it done quick. Probably not the case
in Portugal (Greece, Spain, Ireland).
2.
The Studier
Coimbra was the antithesis to Lisbon. It is a cosy and quiet
town on a river, with one of Europe’s oldest universities. The university had
the old library, which was an ornate Cathedral dedicated to the faith of the
written word. Very cool.
While in a supermarket here we came across piles and piles
of salted cod, as you can see in the picture. This stuff stank out the whole
supermarket. Salted cod is the national food of Portugal, and they can’t get
enough of it (forget what you’ve heard about Peri Peri chicken ). The sad thing
is, due to the stringent EU laws on food, fish in the salted and dried form is
deemed unsafe for restaurant use. The supermarkets have piles of this salted
fish because making it at home is the only way they can eat it.
We even managed to see The Hobbit 2 in Coimbra. We will see
Hobbit 3 in the town it was filmed next year!
3.
The Worker
The Worker a.k.a Porto a.k.a Oporto a.k.a Port was the
highlight of Portugal for both me and Erin (and Mum when she came). It’s the
namesake of Portugal, and is where anything you’ve ever been unlucky enough to
drink from a bottle labelled ‘Port’ comes from. The city feels more real than
Lisbon probably because it’s not as touristy (there’s even a tour company
called ‘We Hate Tourism Tours’) and there are still old, poor neighbourhoods perched
is spectacular, central parts of the city hosting generation after generation
of the same family. It had a great feel.
The dish that is the specialty of this town is called a
Francechina, and is a meat, bread, egg, cheese and meat and chilli sauce dish
that supposably makes the big make look healthy. Doctors say once a month absolute
max. I had two in 24 hours.
The Portuguese, like most Europeans, are crazy about soccer.
We went out to see the Porto Superdragons defeat another Portuguese team 4 – 0,
nestled in amongst the blue and white of the local supporters.
The day after the soccer we got a bus headed for Spain, and
once again passed over the border without even a hint of recognition.
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