Upon our arrival in Lisbon we realized the fado festival was underway and our hotel was located at its center.
"Fado is Portugal’s blues or rebetika or tango or flamenco. They stand on emotions...it is an emotional kind of music full of passion, sorrow, jealousy, grief and often satire. Yet fado differs from its musical cousins in its poetic mystery and its ability to fuse dichotomous traits: impossible pain and fervent joy, life’s cruelty with love’s intensity.”
In celebration of St. Anthony, the Portuguese decorate the alleyways and squares and spend three weeks of June eating snails and grilled sardines, drinking their favorite libation, and listening to the fado singers into the wee hours of the morning.
I can personally testify to this since our room was in Alfama–the oldest sector of the city built on Roman ruins. It was the center of what is now Lisbon when the Moors occupied the city and has remained the area where the sailors and poor of the city tend to live.
A maze of narrow alleyways wind through the steep hillside, laundry hangs from the windows and balconies, and the buildings lining the alleys are decorated with Portuguese ceramic tiles and painted in bright cheery colors–with a coral pink being perhaps the favorite.
The view from our window was lovely, even though the bathroom was a bit cramped. But at night we could see the full moon across the water in the bay and we could hear the thumping beat of the fado festival from the street by the wharf below.
I’m sure that fado comes in all sorts of shapes and colors–some being more “of the people” and some being more refined. But there is a festival atmosphere throughout Lisbon–and especially in Alfama.
Around every corner the smell of grilled sardines fills the air and little groups of locals gather in a corner bar or square sipping ginja (a tasty sour cherry liqueur) as soon as the heat of day begins to wane.
But the music really only starts up after sunset. Forget sleeping. Just join the party.
