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The impressive Arco da Rua Augusta
in Praca do Comercio, the main river-side plaza, Lisbon – part of the rebuilding of the city after the 1755 earthquake We got talking with two Austrian girls in a restaurant in Lisbon (we were the only diners and yes, people think they are Australian and ask them if they have kangaroos in their garden).
They made an interesting comment about their country’s approach to the recession – that Austrians more-or-less expect bad things to happen and had accepted life would be grim for a while. (They also said people still celebrate Hitler’s birthday, which was more disconcerting than any recession stats.)
In Lisbon the recession is clearly visible. The city is undoubtedly beautiful – set on the broad Tagus river estuary, full of lush green parks and impressive columnar statues glorifying kings and statesmen like the Marquis of Pombal who oversaw the reconstruction of the city after the devastating earthquake in 1755.
The central city was completely rebuilt, so is full of elegant buildings and grand squares - and on the surface it still looks like a bustling capital. But leave the central tourist hub, or take a bus through one of the residential suburbs by accident, as we did on the first day using our bus pass, and the streets are
statue of the first prince of Portugal
One of many statues glorifying kings and civic leaders - this prince is overlooking the Tagus River (Rio Tejo) full of graffiti, broken or bricked up windows and empty buildings.
It wasn’t just the lousy weather that made things look grey – the prospect of even more unemployment and closed businesses is tangible.
We’d had two weeks in Albufeira, one of a string of previously small and quiet fishing villages along the Algarve coast which were transformed into holiday playgrounds in the late 1970’s by hoards of Brits invading in search of sun, sand and cheap plonk.
The minute we turned up at our apartment in one of those huge, white, wedding cake-type blocks, we could smell recession. The taxi dropped us off at ‘reception’ but the reception office was closed and empty.
There was hardly another soul in the whole complex…it was like a ghost hotel. We found out the next day from our apartment manager that the complex was in fact bankrupt and that bookings for the apartments she managed was down two thirds for the coming season.
This didn’t however take the shine off our stunning view over the old town centre of Albufeira and Atlantic Ocean beyond, or our delight
Fado
an impromptu performance of the melancholy but very popular Portuguese folk song genre, in one of the restaurants in the Rossio area, down town Lisbon at being able to take an ESCALATOR down to the beach and main restaurant area, or our appreciation of the beautiful, clean, biscuit-crumb beaches that run right up to the bars, restaurants and picturesque cliffs of the Algarve. It really is a very beautiful part of the world.
And it seemed pretty busy to us in the town – families, couples, groups – mostly baring large amounts of white or red flesh in sun frocks, shorts and t-shirts while we still wore polar fleeces against the chilly Atlantic wind – were enjoying the beach side cafes.
But when you realised that virtually the whole town is bars and cafes and saw how many were empty, or closed down, it was clear this was slow for the time of year…and with the UK back in recession there is no sign of a sudden influx.
We took a bus tour to the south western-most point of Europe – Cape St Vicente – where Columbus and his contemporaries left from the port of Sagres to find new sea routes and conquer the world for Portugal.
I wanted to stand on the
Parque das Nacoes (Park of Nations)
Roof of the train station for the area which was the site of the 1998 Expo and now the oceanarium, marina etc. Lisbon is very spread out, so we took the tourist buses for the first time and had great views last place the sailors would have seen before they sailed towards the horizon…and what they would have considered to be certain death by sea monsters, violent storms or just simply falling off the edge of the earth.
It is an achingly beautiful place – flat but high on the top of sheer limestone cliffs, windswept and relatively barren, (Portugal is a land of lush greenery compared with Spain). But the most fascinating part of our tour was the intermittent commentary from our local ‘tour guide’. Antonio (we guessed that was his name – he never introduced himself to the bus full of eager tourists) was the most depressing, cynical, irresponsibly bigoted tour guide you could imagine.
Some gems of information about Portugal that we learned from him: “all our politicians are liars…everything in Portugal is ‘banka-roopta’…gypsies are all thieves…adopting the euro has killed Portugal.” I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt until he varied his tirade about the uselessness of Portugal with a brief botanic interlude, pointing out some fine specimens of Norfolk Pines…”from Norfolk Island in New Zealand.” Australia is always claiming our things, so I thought I’d let
Berardo museum
A bottle tree sculpture at the entrance to the wonderful Berardo contemporary art museum in Belem. Extra wonderful as it’s free this one go, stop listening to Antonio and just sit back to enjoy the scenery.
In terms of the recession, Spain is in the same boat as Portugal and its unemployment is worse – 50% for those under 25 - but the Spanish, unlike Antonio, are clearly in denial. In Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Malaga and Marbella they were out eating, drinking, shopping, laughing and determined to keep what economy they had left, going.
Seville was no exception. We had two nights there on our way to Portugal and it was buzzing with crowds filling the tourist trifecta of cafes, cathedral and castle. Top of my list was to see flamenco, but traditional not ‘tourist’ flamenco.
In amongst the labyrinth of narrow cobbled lanes we found the Casa de la Memoria de Al-Andalus I had read about. The first session was booked out but I managed to get a ticket for the 7.30 show. You will have noted the ‘I’ – Rhys will tolerate any number of art galleries, but he draws the line at dance. Which is just as well…he would have hated it.
I was one of
Aphrodisiac Telephone
They only had one Dali, but it was his lobster telephone so I was happy only a handful of non-Spanish tourists – the crowd in the tiny venue was hushed, reverential, knowledgeable. First came the guitarist, then the male flamenco singer and accompanying hand clapper, then to much applause the female dancer and finally the obvious star – the male flamenco dancer, who made Michael Flatley look like he had two left feet.
It was passionate, fast, serious and savage. They were given a standing ovation, so although I didn’t have a clue who I was watching - announcements were only in Spanish – I knew they were good!
Lisbon was our last Iberian location, we flew from there on easyJet with no alarms or excursions and landed at lovely Luton airport to drizzle and 5 degrees. The plan had been to arrive in the UK in May to avoid any late spring bad weather, but what it seems we’ve managed to do is miss summer altogether – they had a couple of weeks of hot sun while we were in Spain!
But we are staying in a beautiful cottage overlooking the River Deben in Suffolk which is owned by our wonderful UK/NZ-connection rellies Peter and
Rhys' choice
Rhys thought this installation was the best. Yes - It had been raining… Mary.
We can watch people messing about in boats, there are rabbits hopping around the garden and squirrels and woodpeckers in the trees. There are cute little villages everywhere, pink thatched roof pubs with Morris Dancers, lovely old churches and footpaths leading off through lush fields of barley.
Yes, it’s cold and wet outside…but…it’s England!
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