So, I’m back in Portugal.
I have a personal, if somewhat distant, connection with Lisbon. My father, a British Army officer, was here during World War Two.
Four posts from 2017, parts three, four, five and six, explain my interest in Dad’s time here. As well, they briefly recount Portugal’s now mostly forgotten (at least outside the country) dictatorship. Those who have not read my blog before may find them useful, but do come back to this post!
It’s late winter in Lisbon. Well, they call it winter. Humans …
… and others bask in the warmth.
Lisbon is hilly, one of its pleasures along with the trams. On the other side of this tram …
… is the Salão Lisboa, now a clothing store …
… but once a cinema known for Westerns and shoeshines. To the side of the store now …
… is an outside escalator, opened a few months ago.
Ferg, a longtime friend, tests this alternative to a steep climb. It takes us to Mouraria and Alfama, once notorious slums, home now to trendy Airbnb accommodations.
Lisbon is beginning to suffer from ‘Barcelona-ization’, a surfeit of tourists …
… which may account for stencilled ‘Beware Pickpockets’ signs in English …
… and locals increasingly a minority in their neighbourhoods. Sorry, but I love the slippers.
Still, if there’s a time of year to visit (and Lisbon is well worth visiting), this is it. By comparison with high season, the place is deserted. Well, perhaps a slight exaggeration.
Anyway, without being jostled, I indulge my odd enthusiasm for quirky signs and interesting architecture, rare in a world of grim standardization.
‘Hardware, Machines, Tools’.
Restaurante Bar Solar dos Galegos, which seems to be related to Galicia in Spain not Portugal.
A vintage sign advertising, among other things, pharmaceuticals and perfumes.
‘Frames, Mirrors, Glass’, an ancient sign, but on which telephone numbers have been updated.
Not a sign, but it catches the passerby’s eye … I find this outside a shop selling modern sewing machines.
As for more modern embellishments, I arrive just as the sun illuminates the superb art moderne figures …
… on what was the Cinema Condes on the Avenida da Liberdade. This is opposite the stunning art deco Teatro Eden. Pictures of that are in one of the posts I mentioned earlier.
Now a short history lesson, which might also be helped by those previous posts. Although for half a century, Portugal was highly authoritarian and repressive, a degree of cautious grumbling was sometimes possible. One place where this went on was the Café Chave d’Ouro - the Golden Key Cafe …
… on the Rossio, the square in Lisbon’s heart. I know my father passed by, although don’t know whether he went in. When last here I couldn’t identify exactly where the cafe - frequented by intellectuals and dissidents - had been. At home, matching Google Street View …
… to an old photo, it became clear.
How I would have loved to have been and not just for the Thirties decor. For here came not only dissidents, but refugees from Nazi Germany, including American heiress Peggy Guggenheim and writer Arthur Koestler. For all its faults, Portugal allowed some safe passage. The cafe was abuzz with gossip, lies and half-truths, but also occasional valuable information. Eventually the regime had enough and shut it down.
Decades later, I can find no evidence of the fabled Café Chave d’Ouro …
… only a waiter from a nearby restaurant having a smoke and tourists taking a break.
In a square a few hundreds metres from the vanished cafe - closed by the notorious secret police - the dictatorship itself ended. I remember those brave people who here, in 1974, trapped the prime minister …
… in this police barracks, sent him packing into exile and brought democracy to Portugal.
It was called the ‘Carnation Revolution’ for the hopeful flowers given to soldiers who backed the uprising.
A plaque in the square honours Captain Salgueiro Maia, a key figure in the regime’s overthrow.
At day’s end, a very good dinner of cod and golden potatoes, and some more history. For centuries my cod might have come from the Grand Banks off Canada’s east coast. Tough and brave Portuguese fishermen and discoverers changed Europeans’ understanding of the world. And that, for a time, made Portugal ruler of a global empire.
Tomorrow, it’s off to Portugal’s south coast ... and to Cape St. Vincent from where the names in my childhood school texts headed into the unknown.
