Enjoying the gentle life in Portugal

The rigours of travel are softened by the friendly locals and relaxing
pursuits around Lisbon

DOCTOR ON THE WING

The Medical Post
August 09, 2005
Volume 41 Issue 27

By Ron Charach

IN RECENT YEARS travel has become an issue for me, as I have a bad back
and the hours of waiting around in airports remain a challenge. It had
been some 20 years since, in pre-back-problem days, I crossed the
Atlantic with my wife on a visit to Venice, Florence and Rome.

So why Portugal, in late May, and for only a week? Even with a stop-over
it is only an eight-and-a-half hour flight from Toronto; nine hours is
about my limit on a plane. And my adventure goals were modest. My wife
and I were nearing our 24th anniversary and with some indoor decorating
going on, we needed to escape the paint fumes.

So when I read an article called “Falltime in Portugal” by D.S. Morris,
and discovered one driving tour that suited my limited range of
mobility, we decided to go.

Base yourself in the restful resort area of Cascais, advised Morris, and
from there, consider scenic drives to a number of fabled towns, such as
nearby Sintra, described by the Romantic poet Lord Byron as the fairest
town in Europe. We were close enough to take a commuter train into
Lisbon, since I’d read that driving into the city could take years off
your life.

We established a few realistic goals before taking off; mine included
luring my wife away from her scientific research, trying to speak a
little Portuguese (since I find it a playful and mildly erotic
language), hearing a little live Fado music and strolling the streets of
one of the world’s great cities.

From the moment we arrived at the Lisbon Airport Autojardim (literally
“automobile garden”) to rent one of the few automatic cars left in
Europe, I knew we were a long way from Toronto. It was but 5:30 a.m.,
fully six hours before check-in time at our hotel in Cascais. The gangly
Euro-whiz-kid clerk had spiked black hair and was losing his voice; he
had spent the whole night cheering on his soccer team in the finals.
Though hung over, he processed our rental with courteous dispatch. His
colleague, another kid hoarse from soccer screams, provided some cursory
directions for our escape from early-morning Lisbon onto the coastal
road to Cascais, the Marginal.

After negotiating several bewildering roundabouts that characterize
Lisbon (a city of ruas and avenidas around central piazzas), we realized
we were heading away from Cascais and consulted the occupants of a car
filled with Portuguese men hauling a large fishing boat on a trailer.
Who better to point us in the right direction to a fishing hamlet?
Realizing how hopelessly off course we’d strayed, the fishermen drove
more than a mile out of their way to deposit us on the coastal road to
Cascais. Such courtesy was as ubiquitous as the country’s genius for
fixing fresh fish.

“So Canadense” (“I’m a Canuck”) is not a bad bit of add-on vocabulary to
the obligatory “thank you” (obrigado), to “good morning,” “good
afternoon” and “good evening”: bom dia, boa tarde and boa noite.

If Cascais was a place to eat well and gaze at fishing boats, Sintra was
unfairly gifted with palaces and even an old Moorish castle – all perched
on lushly green mountains with a breathtaking view, and the ideal
location for a honeymoon or anniversary. Before leaving your heart in
San Francisco, check out the hills around Sintra. Even a bad traveller
like me is vowing one day to return.

Bustling Lisbon is known for the winding streets in its Moorish Alfama,
the oldest part of the city, and the heroic-scaled pracas built after
the Great Earthquake of 1755 that claimed 40,000 souls on All Saints’
Day. Safe by North American big-city standards, it is also one of the
cleaner cities, as Portugal is one of the cleanest countries on the planet.

Portugal’s lively café scene rivals its more upscale restaurants. What
could be grander than posing alongside a statue of the country’s
best-known Bohemian poet Fernando Pessoa (whose name means “person” and
who wrote under a number of pseudonyms) outside the exquisite Café A
Brasiliera in the tourist-hopping district of Baixa-Chiado?

As for the Fado music, we cancelled our reservations at Senior Vinho’s,
one of the best venues in the city, once we appreciated just how smoky
it would be. Instead we bought recommended CDs by Fado legend Amalia
Rodrigues, the most adored woman in Portugal since the Virgin Herself,
and up-and-coming superstar Marizia.

In many European cities, as in the Orient, people still smoke like
fiends. The only unpleasant aspect of our week in Portugal was our
continually wandering into little billows of smoke, even in interior
public spaces such as airports.

A lesser gripe concerns the cuisine. No matter how wonderful the dish of
fresh peixe or carne, it must be accompanied by the same combination of
boiled potatoes, broccoli and carrots, all drenched in butter. The
Constitution must also ban whole wheat from bread. Although the
Portuguese make a delicious peasant-grade pao, similar to the Italian
calabrese, almost everywhere it is the identical pao before and while
you dine, albeit with an endless variety of delicious cheeses. The
Portuguese wines, especially the whites, were routinely good. And who
can sip a glass of port wine without pondering that Portugal is
England’s oldest ally, if a sometimes ambivalent one?

Arresting art

An oasis of calm in the middle of Lisbon was Portugal’s finest art
museum. The Museu Calouste Gulbenkian was named for the founder, an
Armenian business magnate, and features especially strong collections of
carpets, robes, 16th and 17th century Oriental tiles and glassware,
through pre-modern European Old Masters, a dash of impressionists, right
up to the Art Deco jewelry fantasies of René Lalique. A beguiling show
featured the history of Oriental carpets, appropriately called “Heaven
in a Carpet.” The lush grounds around the Gulbenkian and its five-star
cafeteria, featuring great food and the world’s most comfortable
furniture, offered the perfect place to recover from the hectic pace of
Lisbon. The adjacent Museu de Arte Moderna also featured an unusually
strong local collection.

“Why limit yourself to one week,” people might well ask, “when there are
options as exotic as Oporto to the north, Evora to the south and Tavira
to the east? Why use up three of those precious days visiting Sintra?”
As I said, I don’t travel well. And how could I do justice in a few
words to two weeks, let alone three, spent in a mystifying place like
Portugal, a land of brandos costumes – gentle ways?

Ron Charach is a Toronto doctor who recently completed a volume of new
and selected poems, called Dreams in Exile.