You were
probably worried that the reason I haven’t updated for so long is because I had
gotten immolated and inundated at the end of the Wagner festival in June, but
that wasn’t the reason. The reason was because I’ve been off seeing the big wide
world, mostly parts of it that I have seen before lots of times. But Lisbon –
or the slightest glimpse of the realm of Portugal – I’d never seen before, not
even from the porthole of a jumbo jet.
TAP
Portugal has a good deal going worth noting – on their Transatlantic trips you
can take the multicity option – and stay in Lisbon as long as you like at no
extra cost. And their fares were the most competitive in January when I bought
the tickets, so we planned in a mini-holiday on the way over. Also, it means
makes the Budapest-New York trek much less grueling with nearly a week of
grilled sardines and port (not at the same time) and quaint cobblestone streets
to break it up.
Lisbon
seems like a laid-back sort of place, as far as large port cities go, although
I might be deceived by the fact that it was the middle of summer and the
economy there isn’t exactly humming. It was fearless explorer Rob who pointed
out similarities with Budapest to look out for: the yellow trams (Lisbon’s are mostly
smaller and more agile for sharp turns on twisty cobblestone streets), a general
sense of faded imperial glory, shared easy-going melancholy and work ethic,
missing chunks of architectural record (In Lisbon owing to the earthquake, in
Budapest to the Turks and most of the 20th Century). Both are proud
members of the (very large) circle of illustrious cities that have mystically
reclassified their eighth-highest hills and lower as knolls.
Lisbon
itself doesn’t have too many must-check-off-before-croaking sites, but it’s a
pleasant city – not over-touristed – to walk around in for a few days and soak
up the ambience, with friendly if somewhat, compared to the next-door neighbors
at least, reserved inhabitants. On the first day got I got dragooned (darn, no
photo) in one church into helping a squadron of the faithful very, very heavy
17th century bust of the Holy Virgin from a table – perhaps a test flight for
her assumption into heaven three weeks later – and was rewarded with a big bear
hug, a hearty “welcome to Portugal” and a lightened purification schedule for
Purgatory. And on the subject of opiates, the drug peddlers – which seems to be
a common profession in the tourist zones – were also invariably very cheerful –
and cheeky – offering their wares in not particularly hushed tones, in not
particularly discreet locations. Something to do with Portugal’s
decriminalization of narcotics in 2001 – which you’d think the national tourist
board would advertise more vigorously – although decriminalisation
or no I’m pretty sure, reconciling my – er – hazy – memory of such things with
the unbidden fleeting visual inspection of the goods on offer, that the only crime
these people were guilty of was committed in somebody’s now blossomless azalea hedge
(darn, no photo). No
doubt you could bake a nice cupcake from their higher-end products.
Lisbon suburbs
have swimmable beaches in the suburbs – except they were very crowded and the
water was very cold in late July. Something to do with a precipitous continental
shelf, I am told. My Portuguese friend Sofia, who was in town the following
week – fortunately we were able to catch up in New York
before we returned to Europe – said that even she had never seen the beaches of
Cascais so crowded, hypothesizing that the locals were all vacationing at home
to save money until the crisis passes. And if it doesn’t pass, then there are
worse ways to spend your summer.
What to eat in Lisbon:
1) Grilled sardines (darn, no photo, but
they’re really good, inexpensive, and chock full of vitamins. I’ve made
sardines more part of my regular diet recently after years of mild aversion,
but only the small kind that come in cans. These giant Portuguese sardines
would clean those little canned sardines’ clocks in a fight.)
2) Barnacles. Those little black things go well with cold
beer and are kind of fun to shell, which the waiter showed us how to do
properly (twist, pull, consume dangling wormlike flesh). Something to try once
at least. Now maybe I’ll even eat a snail one day.
3) Pasteis de Nata, these little custard
pastries available at any coffee shop or bakery. Everyone says to get them at
the little patisserie next to the Monastery in Belem, where they originated
from, but they tasted pretty much the same there to me as anywhere else, and
everywhere else was much less crowded. But they’re very tasty wherever you find
them.
If there is one must-see site in the area
it is Sintra, a 45 minute (or so) commuter train ride out of town, where you
climb up a good sized hill, or small mountain, have your pick (there’s also a
bus for the indolent) on the landscaped top of which is the Pena Palace – a
sort of Lusitanified German Romantic summer palace of wild cascading shapes and
forms built by King Fernando II, who had a Hungarian mother, of course. It
looks suspiciously like some of my undergraduate architectural design projects.
Next stop, New York, caput mundi! I was
born there after all.
