Tag: portugal

Postcard from Lisboa, Portugal: Bringing home the groceries

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Requesting they not overload bags, sometimes I have been known to whine to checkers at grocery stores about having a second-floor kitchen at home. A flight of stairs separates the car from our kitchen. But our apartment in Lisboa might have reformed me permanently.

There is a fairly large grocery store close to our apartment. As a pigeon flies. But as a person walks, a few flights of stairs must be navigated when bringing home the goods.

These photos represent the climb. One photo is shot downward, not because that is the direction we get to go but because a restaurant’s umbrellas blocked the view of some of the stairs.

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Motivated by a sale on a favorite bottle of wine, the Mister has made a couple of extra sprints back and forth without me.

At the base of the first flight of stairs is one of the hole-in-the-wall ginjinha bars. Ginjinha is an extremely fortified cherry-flavored beverage served in shot glasses – think an adult-version of Luden’s cough drops on steroids. Although it doesn’t have to be thrown down in one-gulp multiples the way Anthony Bourdain did before staggering off down a street.

As we carried up a supply of groceries/wine this afternoon, I was wondering if a one-shot stop at the base would be helpful.

What would Anthony do?

Postcard from Coimbra, Portugal: Parting Shots

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Don’t know why I haven’t shared more sidewalk shots, as we spend so much of our time walking them. This is the only one in this batch of photographs, but Portuguese sidewalks tend to be incredibly beautiful with varying geometric or lyrical designs. A culture paying artistic attention to what lies underfoot fills me with admiration.

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While females are associated with fado music in much of the country, Coimbra’s fado traditions are associated with the male population of the University of Coimbra. Rather than hear it in a club, we went to listen to the songs of loss or longing as preserved and presented by the nonprofit organization of former students, Fado ao Centro. Here, the male vocalist sings accompanied by a classical guitar and a 12-string Portuguese guitar.

The song we recorded is one of courtship, sung below the window of the target of affection. If the woman favors the attention, she signals by turning the light in her room on and off three times. Those gathered around in the street signal their appreciation of the talents of the musicians not by applause, but by clearing their throats three times at the conclusion of the song of yearning.

Postcard from Coimbra, Portugal: Saintly secrets whispered from walls

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Aside from choosing a saint’s name for First Communion, the stories of saints were pretty much swept under the rug during my Catholic upbringing. But there are more than 10,000 mere mortals whose miraculous deeds, and/or martyrdom, have merited elevation to sainthood.

Their lives envelop you in Portugal, in churches, convents, monasteries and museums. Some saintly stories send signals arousing skepticism, such as the painting of the miracle “St. Bernard and the Lactation” in the Machado de Castro Museum in Coimbra. I didn’t take a photo because it seemed juvenile of me, but baby Jesus nursing on one of Mary’s breasts with a stream of milk squirting out the other into the open mouth of an adult man is a little hard to swallow as an appropriate vision for a sane man to proclaim publicly. And yet attain sainthood?

The fate of the five faithful Franciscans St. (that title bestowed later) Francis sent, or sentenced, to proselytize to the Moors in southern Spain and Morocco, on the other hand, is easier to grasp as saint-worthy. Not surprisingly, the Sultan did not embrace their message. So much so he personally beheaded the five (their shocked expressions captured on the azulejos above), whose remains were miraculously moved to Coimbra where they would inspire missionary zeal in a young Anthony – later to become St. Anthony and a great excuse for someone from a city named in his honor to journey to Portugal in advance of his feast day.

And Queen Isabel (Saint Elizabeth of Portugal, 1271-1336) certainly is recorded as a virtuous role model. Pledged to King Dinis at age 12, she plunged herself into daily devotions as he continued to relish rowdy romps at court while awaiting the actual marriage date a few years later. Once at court, she slowly began to alter the king’s ways by her pious example of prayer and service to the poor, pressuring ladies of the court to assist her, not welcomed as a popular pastime by all.

Queen Isabel was known as a peacemaker, even positioning herself upon a mule between two armed factions poised on the battlefield. She managed to broker peace between her son Affonso and his father during the Civil War arising because Affonso felt the King favored the rise in power of one of his illegitimate sons. (“Ah, Mom,” whined the Prince. “My wife, ever the party-pooper,” grunted the King.) Queen Isabel lavishly funded construction of the Santa Clara Convent while the king was still alive, and, after his death, retreated there herself to serve the poor.

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And, of course, it’s not just their stories. Often it’s parts of them. Literally. Portugal hosts many gleaming reliquaries designed to preserve and display a bone or two of various sizes. As the Mister once remarked years ago with amazement, “One saint sure goes a long way.” Although mysteriously, many of the bones of the reliquaries prominently displayed in Portugal seem to be missing.

One day, much later, I will post my confession about my fascination with relics of saints.

But must be going, if we can make our way through all the partying Spaniards swarming Lisboa for a major soccer match. Two Spanish teams, for some reason. The Lisboa police might welcome some intercessions by Saint Isabel in the streets tonight to part the well-lubricated factions.