Approximately half of my photos from Portugal, or Spain for that matter, are what I guess you would call architectural details. Point blank shots of window treatments or old doors or stone walls. They border on abstract paintings. I take the same sort of shots in Rochester but not as high a percentage.
Walking is a meditation. Most of an hour can pass without speaking a word even when you’re traveling with a partner. But traveling by foot from one town to the next, with everything that is important on your back, is both exhilarating and immensely satisfying. Twenty miles is a long walk. The rewards are abstract and beautiful.
The locals in towns along the way, Caminho da Costa, can spot pilgrims a block away. Most, though, don’t pay any attention. When we pass someone out for a stroll and make eye contact they usually greet us with “Bom Caminho.” So many people here speak some English, the de facto international tongue, that a few have simply said, “Good walk.” I like the way that sounds.
We like eating early which means we have get a meal in before 3 o’clock when everything closes. Otherwise we have to wait until seven when the restaurants begin to open again. You would think we are in Spain.
We left Vila da Conde and continued up the coast, keeping the ocean on our left. Wind technology is not new. There are plenty of old windmills still standing along the windy coast of Portugal. Although their blades, if they are still attached, don’t turn anymore.
We passed though fragrant eucalyptus groves and stopped in the town square of Póvoa de Varzim for coffee. We’ve discovered that if you just ask for café you get a small cup of espresso. That’s what the locals drink so we have jumped on board.
On the way out of town we stopped at the church of San Rogue, a popular saint along the Camino as he is said to have given away all his belongings before setting out on his own pilgrimage to Rome. Along the way he attended to the the sick so he has plenty of devoted followers seeking his intervention.
Clothes on the line in small town on coast of Portugal.
My watch says we walked 24.3 miles today. We left Porto at 9 AM and proceeded to walk for twenty minutes only to wind up where we started. Instead of following directions we should have just followed our noses. We’re taking the Coastal route, instead of the interior route, to Santiago but it turns out there are two Coastal routes. We’re taking the one that is referred to as the Literal Coastal route. It is no exaggeration to say that fifteen of the 24 miles we walked were on a boardwalk that runs parallel with the beach. The wooden boards, covered in sand in places, were an ideal surface for a long distance walk. We arrived at our destination just after dark but in time to find a grocery store where we bought yogurt and bananas for tomorrow.
It was windy today so the ocean was rough. We could barely keep our hats on at times. It was hazy most of the day which was a godsend. When the sun came out it was uncomfortable. We stopped in Angeiras at a seaside restaurant for a late lunch and started with a Bohemian Beer (Original), the first we have had of those, and a plate of olives. The waiter recommended the mackerel. There were three of them on the platter he brought out and it came with a bowl of boiled potatoes, yellow from all the olive oil, and perfect Mediterranean green salad.
Tomorrow we walk again. The Camino in Portugal is not as well marked as the one in Spain so we will just, keep the ocean on our left” as they say. Our life is getting simpler.
Café Majestic, looking like whatever the Portuguese version of art nouveau is, had a long line out front so we walked on by. Livraria Lello, said to be the the most beautiful bookshop in the the world cost 5.50 euros just to get, some sort of voucher to be fair, so we just looked in the door. In both Lisbon and Porto we found ourselves walking well out of the tourist areas where we found the most satisfaction. It was German Unification Day so a lot of Germans took extended weekends. And there nightmarishly large cruise ships just offshore in Lisbon. Porto is a lot more laid back and comfortable.
We found the coolest record shop, an “analógico” (analog) shop that appeared to be doing most of its business online. They could afford to have the most esoteric collection of art books, two on Buffalo’s Tony Conrad, artfully laid out in the small shop. Vinyl racks with Krautrock, Spiritual Jazz (Alice Coltrane, Don Cherry and Sun Ra) and ESG in the Disco section.
We must have stopped in five or so churches, everything from the over the top dusty Rococo church of Sao Francisco to an active parishes with parishioners in the pews. We found a articos religiosos store, Casa do Coracao de Jesus, and picked out twenty holy cards, four euros worth, all printed in Portugal. The shop owner gave Peggi a tiny silver statue of Santo Onofre, the patron saint of money. He instructed her to put it at the very bottom of her purse.
We took an fashioned train, our car had green curtains and the bathroom had a foot pedal to pump for water, from Lisbon to Porto. From here on our journey will be by foot but first we’ll kick back in Porto.
I started reading Sonya Livingston’s new book, The Virgin of Prince Street, on the train and found it to be the perfect companion for our pilgrimage. An early passage in the book finds the author talking to her husband, Jim Mott, after they attended a service at Jim’s family’s Presbyterian church. “I need a statue of a saint, I joked but we both understood that a statue was shorthand for many things – differences in religious backgrounds, for instance, as well as a certain willingness to deviate from logic where devotion is concerned. Let’s stop at Corpus Christi on the way home.”
And then about her hesitance to use the word “god.“ “The larger problem is that even as a child I never expected words to be even exchanges for the truth.” I was reading about her journey to Montreal to see Brother André’s embalmed heart when we zipped through a small town where they were doing a running of the bulls.
The fire juggler/unicyclist outside our hotel in Porto could not engage a crowd as well our friend, Rick. And the three guys with guitars doing Ghost Riders in the Sky, Ring of Fire and Country Road were nothing to write home about but it is nice to have street performers around.
Last night we found a Spanish restaurant In Lisboa and couldn’t resist. We ordered Tortilla Española, Pimientos Padron and Gambas al ajillo As a warm-up to our grand entry into Spain. Tonight we had soft sheep cheese with honey, Bacalao and an orange, watercress and onion salad along the Douro River. God is good.
Peggi with virtual reality headset at Museu Nacional de Arte Contemporânea do Chiado.
Today is Republic Day which commemorates the overthrow of the monarchy in 1910. There are no signs of celebration here. Tomorrow the Portuguese go to the polls and are expected to maintain their democratic socialist alliance.
We started our day with coffee in the room, a canister of dark stuff, and then two cups at breakfast. I still didn’t feel fully awake so we stopped at a café for a café pingado and that did the trick. We were ready for the Museu Nacional de Arte Contemporânea do Chiado where we saw a show called “Inner Space.” The introduction featured a quote from J. G. Ballard that contained the title.
We were entranced by a video installation by the Italian artist, Davide Trabucco,. He explored “the permanence and variation in architectural forms over time” with depictions of the Tower of Babel, aerial views of the Mayan pyramids, Sol Lewitt’s drawings and the Frank Lloyd Wright house in Rochester, New York.
I’ve always been afraid of Virtual Reality headsets for fear they would upset my equilibrium but Peggi appeared to be having so much fun I went for it. Another artist’s installation was all virtual with no reality and it did upset but it was worth it.
We stopped in three churches and they were every bit as good as the museum. Santo António is the patron saint of Lisbon and Portugal (as well as marriage and lost things) and the church built in his name was heavenly. San Roque is as revered in Portugal as he is in Spain. The church with his name had a museum attached to it which included a sixteenth century statue of the saint that had survived the earthquake. And our final church of the day was closer to the center of Lisbon, richer with more gold encrusted flourishes and beautiful statues.
Lisbon is not as old as other European cities as it was completely destroyed by a 8.5 earthquake on All Saints Day in 1755. The sidewalks are covered in tile and even some of the streets are tiled. Many of the buildings are tiled as well. The distinctive blue and white tile, so typical of Portugal, is everywhere but I like the geometric patterns.
We had our first really good cup of coffee in a café across the street from where we are staying. We stumbled on the café pingado by asking for espresso with milk. It turns out there only a drop of mall in the tiny cup but it was like heaven.
We were still struggling with the basics of Portuguese but it doesn’t matter in the old part of the city. Most people want to speak English. Our waiter told us people his age don’t even use the Portuguese word for “yes,” which is sin, because it is too close to the Spanish word for yes, “si.” They resent Spain because it is so much bigger. They use the German word, “ja.”
Rua Augusta Arch in Lisbon Portugal with the Tagus River in distance.
We left JFK at 11pm, lost five hours, saw the sun come up and landed in Lisbon in time for a cup of coffee. We picked up SIM cards at Vodafone and clocked ten miles just walking around the city. It was a pretty spaced out first day.
Portuguese is just close enough to Spanish for Peggi to be able to catch the drift of the written word but when spoken it sounds like Russian.
Obrigado is the first word we learned. Thank you if you are a man, Obrigada if you’re a woman. Hello is “ola” and sounds the same as does in Spanish where the “h” is silent.
We managed to eat most of our garden’s produce before leaving town We’re getting a second crop of cilantro. It likes to reseed itself. Our tomatoes have pretty much run their course but our red peppers are just turning red. We gave a bag of jalapeños to our neighbors and Peggi made eggplant parm with every one of our eggplants. Our kale will still be hardy when we return
The Netflix disc of Buñuel’s “The Phantom of Liberty” will have to wait until we return. We packed our bags after walking up to the post office on Waring Road where we sent off my sister-in-law’s sweater and sandals, items she left at our house when she and my brother were up for his 50th high school reunion.
The woman working behind the counter noticed that we were all wet from the rain and she asked if we wanted to borrow one of the post office’s umbrellas. She said we could bring it back next time. We assured her we were fine. I just didn’t want to get my rain coat wet before packing it. She added, “well, at least the rain water is good for your hair.” We had never heard that one.
We tried packing only ten pounds but we both exceeded our limit. My backpack came in at 13.5 and Peggi’s weighed 12. I had my iPad in there and a bag figs from the co-op but I was surprised to find my bag weighed more than Peggi’s. We each only have one change of clothes, our toiletries,a jacket and some rain gear. And, of course, there’s the chargers for my watch, camera and iPad. Maybe it was my size 12 shoes that gave me the edge.
Casey’s Corsa Corvair parked outside of Hermie’s place on South Union Street
Ever notice how the coolest car’s aren’t even locked? Peggi and I were doing the downtown Landmark Society tour, walking from the luxury lofts in the Sagamore to Craig Jenson’s architect office on South Union when we spotted this red Corsa Corvair parked in front of Skylark lounge.
We knew it had to be Casey’s so we stopped in to say hi. He was sitting with Carpenter Al at the the bar and they told us they were redoing the old Otter Lounge on Monroe Avenue in the Tap & Mallet mold. Casey told us he had put 3,000 miles on his car this summer just driving around town. Fifty years ago Joe Barrett, Dave Mahoney and I drove to Woodstock in a turquoise Corvair, Joe’s mom’s. It wasn’t a convertible though.
