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| October 12 - October 19 2013 |
Ever since we had gone to Spain, tackling the other part of the
Iberian Peninsula had been something that we wanted to do. Friends
would come back, raving about Lisbon and Porto, its food, and of
course, the wine. We had booked these flights months in advance and
were very excited about the trip. We had 9 days to spend making our
way along the length and breadth of the country to see why everyone
loved it so much and to imbibe its famous libations.
We had to book separate flights on the way there so I got in 6
hours earlier, checked into our hotel and walked around the beautiful
promenade streets and waited for the Beckster to fly in. Parts of
Lisbon were very new and chic, ripe with boutiquey outlets and
department stores while others, in neighboring areas, were incredibly
old; rich with cobblestone streets, small houses and laundry strewn
about on every available portion of every balcony we saw.
One of our favorite neighborhoods of the city was called Al Fama.
Stretching down the steep slopes of the city, Al Fama is a gorgeous
area full of picturesque labyrinthine streets, narrow staircases and
small squares which were incredibly lively and vibrant with the
people living in this community. You would turn a corner and find
some secret bar or cafe tucked away into the side of a building, turn
another corner to see some ornately designed fountain, or another
corner to get a glimpse of the ocean between two buildings, just
barely wide enough to catch a glimmer of the sun reflecting off the
water. Al Fama was also famous for its Fado, a Portuguese style of
music, being played. Becky and I walked the area for hours,
being totally mesmerized by its colors, sounds and people. Because of
its small, compactness perched up on the hillside, it was one of the
only neighborhoods of the city that was left more or less untouched
in a massive earthquake in the 18th century. The area evoked
beautiful images of the city's history and left us never wanting to
leave.
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| The streets of Al Fama |
Before heading up north, Becky and I took a day trip from Lisbon
to Sintra. Sintra was a town 45 minutes outside of the city up in the
mountains known for its beautiful architecture, palaces, gardens and
Moorish castles. We spent the better part of an hour climbing this
massive hill to reach the Moorish outpost, climbing higher and higher
through beautifully turned foliage, old stone staircases and
fortified walls and archways. Having finally arrived at the top of
this enormous hill, we were asked to pay a ridiculous entry fee to
walk the grounds of the castle. We did so, irritatedly, and then once
inside, instantly regretted our decision. The Moorish castle, from
the look of it, dated back to 2008. Although beautifully perched on
top of this massive hilltop, the faux-castle left something to be
desired. The best part about the castle was being able to eat the
salami sandwiches that we brought for the walk up.
The highlight of Sintra though was the estate of Quinta da
Regaleira. Quinta da Regaleira was this beautiful lush green estate
with romantic style churches, chapels and a central palace. The
expansive area also featured lakes, streams, grottoes, fountains and
wells. Above ground, the huge area can be walked with interconnected
pathways, zigzagging around the area. Below ground, the wells,
grottoes and buildings are all connected by a myriad of tunnels,
allowing you to get from one end to the other without ever going
above ground. The place was as beautiful as it was enigmatic, with
its gargoyle statues, spired-buildings and spiral designed
staircases. It was a true pleasure to be able to see this
architectural masterpiece.
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| Exploring the tunnels of Quinta da Regaleira |
From there we rented the car and headed north up to Porto. Becky
had gotten in contact with a friend of hers a few weeks earlier and
he had told her that his mom lives in Portugal and urged us to give
her a call and stop by for a visit. The area that she lived in was
conveniently in the direction of Porto so we stopped in for the
afternoon. We met Becky's friend Gill in the city center of a tiny
mountain village and she then took us to her sister's home where she
was staying. Gill and her husband were a British couple who had
retired and moved to Portugal. They had bought a plot of land in the
same village but were staying at a relative's house in the meantime.
The house that they were staying at had been an old manor house that
was restored. The house still retained its original foundation and on
the tour, Becky and I were in awe at how amazing the place looked.
Old wooden I-beams, brick walls, and stone archways had been
incorporated into the house giving it a very interesting feel. Gill
even showed us where the original chapel of the house had been and
how it still contains pews and an altar.
Gill was incredibly hospitable, friendly, and side-stichingly
funny. She lived there with her husband and uncle. Her uncle Reggie
was a very old, frail man who spent his invalid days watching
television, being fed, and complaining about aches and pains he
thought he had. We didn't speak to him much but Gill spoke of him to
us. He had always been an odd duck, complacent with not doing much
with his life, shirking any sort of ambition in work, life or love.
"He never even had a shag," Gill said about him in a
voice that told us she really didn't understand the guy.
Reggie had never been abroad besides the time he spent at his
station in World War II. He seemed to have spent his entire life
doing what he was currently doing, waiting around to die. As the
night went on, Gill and her husband invited us to stay for an amazing
roast dinner, and Becky was invited to drink copious amounts of wine.
I, being the driver, stayed with juice. We finished our delicious
dinner, thanked our generous hosts, and jumped in the car towards
Porto. On the drive up, with Becky being less concerned with
conversation and more concerned with drooling on herself in the
passenger seat, I found myself thinking of Reggie.
Death will find us all in the end. Hopefully later rather than
sooner but it's something that cannot be avoided. Reggie and many
others like him are at a time in their lives when all they can do is
reflect on the time they have spent walking this earth. The things
and people they loved, lost, didn't love or the things that never
found a way into their lives but they wish had. I do not know what
the cards hold after we make the giant leap from this current
precipice of life; I am of the opinion that when I die, I will think
about my life in a similar capacity to how I thought about my life
before I was born. So on one hand, there is not much to worry about.
Whatever regrets one may or may not have will cease to exist as soon
as you shut your eyes for a final time, making everything a moot
point. But on the other hand, I can imagine nothing scarier, more
pitiful, or more wretched than those last final minutes before
shutting your eyes where one might reflect on a life unfulfilled to
the best of one's abilities. If anything can help alleviate that
fear, I want to do it. My own way of managing the shadows I create, I
suppose.
Whatever our beliefs may be, we all contain an enormous capacity
for happiness and unhappiness alike-- the type of happiness and
unhappiness unaffected by the hazards of life and the perceived
hindrances that stifle us. It’s about the way we regard ourselves
in relation to the world we live in and the people we share our lives
with. We are all destined for happiness, just so long as we provide
ourselves with enough ambiguity for said happiness and understand
that one day, it will all come to an end, never to appear again in
the consciousness we currently possess.
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| Porto at night |
A few hours later, the GPS in the car told us that we had reached
our destination so we parked, checked into our hotel and spent the
night walking around Porto. Becky and I were both just getting over a
cold so we didn't spend too much time walking around and turned in
early.
The next day we spent walking around the very hilly yet beautiful
Porto, sampling Port wine at every chance, and we even had time to
take a boat cruise and see the city from the river that serves as an
artery through the city. We ate steaks topped with runny eggs (that
seems to be a thing in Portugal - whatever the food may be, put an
egg on it!), sipped wine overlooking the river and viewed the
gorgeous churches and old buildings of the city.
From Porto, we drove north in search of a town called Braga. For
whatever reason, the GPS wasn't able to find Braga so I had Becky use
my tablet. The GPS on my tablet worked fine so I showed Becky where
we were, where we were headed and had her guide me to Braga through
the streets of northern Portugal. I was hesitant to task Becky with
this orienteering endeavor because she usually can be quite
directionally ("I thought north was up!") challenged but
she seemed to be quite capable at the task at hand. Whenever I asked
her where to go, she gave me a perfect answer and she said we were
right on target. She kept telling me what to do, I kept listening to
which she would keep saying, "We are on target."
Wondering what she meant by that and under the impression that we
should have been in Braga long ago, I pulled over to the side of the
road, took the tablet and realized that we had been going in the
complete wrong direction from the moment she started opening her
mouth and telling me which way to go.
"Becky, we are nowhere near Braga, what are you doing? Why
weren't you guiding me?" I asked, annoyed.
"What do you mean? The blue dot was flashing so I followed
the blue dot!" Becky shrugged back, inferring that there must be
some other reason for our erroneous navigation.
"The blue dot, Becky? And did you notice that whenever we
turned, the blue dot turned with us?" I said, no longer annoyed
just dumbfounded.
"Yeah, we were on target."
"No, Becky. We were not on target and we were not following
the blue dot. We ARE the blue dot."
I watched as this wave of new information washed over her. She
acted as if she was forming words with her mouth, thought better of
it, then slumped in her seat and fiddled with her hands.
"Maps confuse me," she said, quite unnecessarily.
So we righted the ship, back-tracked our steps, and finally made
it to Braga and to what we came to see. The Bom Jesus do Monte. High
atop the mountains on the outskirts of Braga is the enormous and
beautiful Portuguese sanctuary. An old pilgrimage site with an
elaborately decorated staircase mounted with statues of saints and
arch bishops that zigzags its way up the hill for nearly 500 feet. On
different levels of the zigzagged staircases are different fountains
to symbolize different senses of the human body and virtues of the
human spirit. The baroque-style churches reached high into the air and
allows for beautiful views of the surrounding area down below.
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| Me at the base of Bom Jesus do Monte |
With bad weather closing in on us and our time in Portugal coming
to an end, we jumped back onto the highway and made our way back down
to Lisbon to catch our flight. The economic situation in Portugal was
quite dire we found out. We had inquired to someone along the way as
to why we were pretty much all alone on the highways we were driving
on. We were told that it was a simple answer: no one could
afford to use them.
Portuguese drivers preferred to take side roads and old highways
to avoid tolls that we only realized at that moment we were
incurring. Another observation we made went hand in hand with this
one: very few people were fiddling with smart phones. People watched
where they were walking on the street, talked to each other in
restaurants, and took zero selfies. Most people simply couldn't
afford it.
We stopped over in Obidas right as the torrential rain set in. We
had lunch, waited for it to subside, then wandered the old city walls
and watched the remaining drizzle cascading off the coned roofs. The
rivers of water also sprayed over the sides of the stone ramparts and
fortified towers of the old city. Heightened by the rain, Obidas was
a beautiful little village with the rolling green hills of central
Portgual in the backdrop.
We jumped back on the road and headed for Lisbon. Hours later, we
waited with bated breath to see Lisbon city limit signs. I was very
careful not to alter my acceleration too much, opted to coast down
declines, and clinch my teeth during inclines. For some reason our
bullshit budget rental car's policy is to charge you for the tank of
gas when you pick it up but then tell you to just bring it back
empty. Indignant, annoyed, and determined to not be ripped off, Becky
and I made hasty calculations at the gas station in Obidas to
ascertain the minimum amount we could fill up with and still make it
to Lisbon. Our petrol was depleting fast and we were on a barren
highway in the middle of a rainstorm but our calculations came
through in the end. Becky may not know her ass end from a compass
heading but she did get us to the airport with a few fumes to spare.
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| The streets of Obidas |
And as our fantastic trip to Portugal came to a close, so
commenced the most hellish and enraging airplane travel experience we
have ever encountered together. What was meant to be a 6 hour travel
day ended up being a very irritating, sleepless, and deliriously
long, 28 hour travel experience which I promise is not worth writing
about.
Something that is worth mentioning though is Reggie. A few days
later, Becky saw a post on Facebook from our host Gill saying that
Reggie had in fact just died days after we met him. The news was
shocking and sad, but not unexpected given his age, health, and
frailty when we last saw him. I can only hope that I am lucky enough
to slip away one day, reflecting on my life, the choices I made, the
people I knew and the things I have done with a big smile on my face.
When I first started this blog, I looked around for guidance and
inspiration and I found myself on a friend's blog reading past
stories and looking at pictures, entertained by what he had to say.
His blog is called
MookFish
and the main quote at the top of his blog reads:
"Most of us go to our graves with the music still inside
of us."
This beautiful quote encapsulates Reggie's tragedy better than I
possibly could so I will leave you with that and that alone.
Books Read:
Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
