Wednesday 11.3.2010

Fun with Fado

We are starting to get the rhythm of Zuzabed Bed and Breakfast when we hit breakfast this morning. Dominick and Susan are still here and we are joined later by Phillip and Crystal who just got off an early morning flight from Brussels. There is a constantly changing cast but the director of the show, Luis, never lets the production lag. He is bright-eyed enthusiasm full time and he knows everything about everyone within minutes of their arrival. Of course many of the guests we have met are returnees and we can see why.


Luis gives us the primer on public transportation so we can catch the train to Belem after breakfast. We have decided to go back to the Italian place for dinner tonight that we mistakenly sat down in last night. We liked the looks of it, so Luis is off the hook for reservations, but we tell him that Fado is definitely on our list for tonight.


We walk down to Rossio and across past the evil lunch restaurant from yesterday (where we would still be waiting for our check) to the little transportation shop that sells multi-use tickets. We get two “Zapping” cards that we have loaded with three euros each and walk out the back door to the #15 train stop. This is like the Minneapolis light rail that cruises through the city on surface streets. We are going down-river a few miles to get to the harbor opening into the Atlantic.


Belem is the point where all of Portugal’s seafaring adventures that made them a world power for centuries have historically begun. Today it is a working shrine to those times, but when Lisbon was virtually wiped out by an earthquake in 1755 it also became the home to many of the country’s elite and remains so to this day.


We are intrigued by the Carriage Museum where royal means of transportation prior to the combustion engine have been collected and restored. It is surprisingly interesting to see a couple hundred years of the evolution of horse drawn transportation and all the costumes and hardware to go with it. King John V was obviously a prodigious sinner because he gave three intricately carved magnificent coaches to the Popes who were in office during his reign.

Next is the Monastery of St. Jeronimos, a monster of a church and cloister erected in the 1500s to see sailors off on adventure and welcome them back with their riches (which will pay for the church). The church is the resting place of Vasco de Gama, Portugal’s most famous explorer who carved a route to the Orient and established the Portuguese as a trading force to be reckoned with. The church itself is a theme park of carved palms, elephants, foreign faces and waves depicting the reach of the empire around the world. You can’t argue with success.

There is a pile of school children swarming into the cloister so we move to the park across the street where Mary whips out a couple apples and some breakfast bars that will serve as lunch today. We have a nice view of the river mouth, some ships cruising, the huge April 25th Bridge across the water and a statue of Christ on the far shore. This was inspired by and is similar to the iconic statue over Rio in Brazil.


Our #15 train carries us back into town. There are ticket cops on the train and are writing up some young fellows behind us which we hear results in a huge fine. Our little Zappings will keep us safe. We get off where we get on and immediately catch the #12 trolley up to the top of the hill on the Alfama side of the city. This trolley is the real deal and at one point the driver has to get out with his crow bar to change the direction of the tracks. We sputter and clamor to the top for a great view of the river and a cruise ship just leaving port. We stroll around the castle on the top and then work our way back down, through Baixa and back to the elevator that offended others and us yesterday.

Today we get right on and are up in our neighborhood in a flash. We stop in one of our little local squares for a beer break and listen to a five-piece Brazilian acoustic band kick out some tunes.  The National Guard armory where the 1974 revolution to overthrow Salazar took place is right behind us as is our parking garage.  Mary wondered how they could get a tank into this square if we could barely get a Peugeot in.

We don’t get much of a break before it is time for dinner. Luis draws us a map to get us to a Fado bar later and says he might see us there. Dinner tonight is at Esperanca, the Italian place we almost ate at last night. Mary has a really good smoked salmon pasta, and John an equally good ham and mushroom pizza with a salad to share.


It’s almost ten by the time we get to our entertainment for the evening. It is a drinks only place with a complicated Portuguese name that translates to Chico’s Bar. Susan and

Dominick are at the bar sipping a port and we snuggle in to do the same. Fado (translated “Fate”) is the folk music of Portugal accompanied only by stringed instruments and sung from the soul. It is performed in a hands-in-the-pocket understated style where only the voice gives rise to the emotion of the music. Our host is the first to sing and gets the evening off with a bang as he cries out a song that brings a tear to our eyes and we don’t understand a word.

There are two musicians that will back up all the singers tonight. One is playing a traditional looking guitar that lays a very rhythmic base line and the other has a round twelve string Portuguese guitar that sounds like a mandolin and presents a complex array of notes behind the long laments of the singers. They are fantastic!


What a line up. Each set has a couple singers who rise when introduced by the host and with a few words to the musicians begin their song choices for tonight. There are several women, one 87-year-old fellow, a couple younger guys who are pretty operatic and a mixture of regulars. The place is now overflowing into the street outside and is mostly locals with a few flash-bulb popping tourists. Occasionally there will be a pause in the lyrics of the song and the entire room will break into the chorus while the singer closes his eyes and sways with the music.

In the midst of the evening Luis and Luis come rolling through the crowd with another flourish and handshakes through the room and then join us at the bar. After a song or two there is a word with the host, some people are shoved closer and we all have seats at a table right in front of the singers. They have run out of the port we had been drinking but again, Luis has a word with the host and he breaks out his own special bottle of something that tastes like a cross between wine and chocolate. Now Wolfe and Karen from Germany, who just arrived into Luis’ flock, join us to finish out the night. Luis whispers some explanations of the music when he is not joining in the chorus.

It is close to 1:00 AM when the lights come back up and we all go separate ways from the street in front. What great fun, what a great night and what a highlight of our trip. The streets of Bairro Alta are packed at this hour of the morning, but nobody is having more fun than us.


Today’s Picture: Late afternoon beer break in Lisbon