Iberian Spring: Day 3 Lisbon

Soundtrack: “Six Months in a Leaky Boat” – Split Enz / “Folsom Prison Blues” – Johnny Cash (both preferably sung in portuguese fado style)

While our Lisbon bed is a bit firmer, the pillows aren’t great, so I was awake early with a sore neck (and a touch of heartburn, likely from the copious amounts of cheese consumed yesterday). I used the time looking at nearby breakfast options that might have something gluten free on the menu, found a couple of possibles that might do something gf other than a couple of eggs. In the end my research wasn’t required as L had already picked out Chez Bea as they promised gluten free crepes. Can’t argue with that.

After putting some washing on in the hotel laundry, we headed out to Chez Bea. There was a slight detour as I popped into patisserie along the way for the first pastel de nata of the day. Again a decent effort, lots of crunchy buttery pastry, and a sweet custard filling. I passed on the option for an accompanying glass of port, though was impressed this was on the menu for a little corner bakery.

From what we’ve seen so far, when it comes to menus Lisbon eating establishments seem to trail behind most other european countries for labelling allergens. The occasional menu might flag vegetarian suitable dishes, but there’s been little denoting the presence of common allergens (and certainly nothing like other nations where menues might indicate 11+ possible allergens). So there’s been a bit of ordering and hoping.

We had no such issues at Chez Bea, as the server took us through all the gluten free choices on the menu, and those not guaranteed gf (there weren’t many). While the bacon and egg galette (filled crepe) appealed, I kept it local by going with serrano ham, cheese, and egg galette, along with a coffee and a banana and peanut butter smoothie. The buckwheat crepe was amazing, crunchy at the edges and filled with delicious ham. The coffee was fine, which is a good thing, hopefully it’s a reflection of Portugal as a whole knowing how to make a cup of coffee (unlike the UK, while they do make a number of wonderful beverages, a good coffee there is the exception, which is why I drink tea there). Good smoothie too, peanut butter, banana and cinnamon all in balance so no one ingredient dominated.

Full and with the washing about done we headed back, with a quick stop to take some pics of a church as the sun was just right. Across the road from the church is a rather interesting shop that sells all manner of goods, from power tools to stills, a combination that works best in the right order: power tools first, then make alcohol. The shop, and the church adjacent, both had bells (are you getting this Hemingway?).

We planned the rest of the day while waiting for the dryer to do its thing. A trip along the coast for some old Lisbon and pastels, then a fado show at night.

You may have seen pictures of the Belem Tower, the 16th century fort that has appeared for me at least once as windows wallpaper. It sits by the edge of the river near its mouth, and was built to shore up Lisbon’s defences and to symbolise Portuguese naval dominance at the time. Build from limestone and hubris, it did the job for about 30 seconds of world history time before the Spanish came along and took the tower by force in 1580. Following this it served mainly as a prison for a lot of years, before the invention of tourists led to it becoming a UNESCO world heritage site. It’s currently closed for renovations/restoration, but we could at least walk around the bit on the shore.

We wandered over to the Bom Sucesso Fort which now houses Portugal’s war museum, and the adjacent Monument to Overseas Combatants. The structure, wall, and eternal flame commemorate the 9,000 Portuguese armed force members killed in attempting to preserve the last remnants of Portuguese colonialism in the 20th century. Their lives are commemorated in part because it was these colonial conflicts that became so unpopular that it led to the overtrhow of Portugal’s dictatorship in 1974 (one of the mindblowing things about Portugal and Spain is how both were ruled by fascist dictators until the mid-1970s). Two guards were standing vigil over the Monument, fortunately they have little pillboxes to stand in most of the time, though once the do their swap sides maneuver they are required to step backward into the box.

Heading back we briefly stopped to check out the huge Monument to the Discoveries, a large construction dedicated to those Portuguese who went out in the 15th and 16th centuries making maps and otherwise “discovering” peoples and places that didn’t necessarily want to be discovered. As the product of British colonialism, I can’t really single out the Portuguese for this, afterall current Australia is the result of such “discoveries” by European colonial powers, for better or worse (almost definitely worse for our first nations folks). But it’s an impressive monument to the home team.

Across the road was a flea market, full of trinkets, old crockery, new jewellery, random books, bags made from old cassettes and 3.5″ floppy discs (points for style, not sure how robust they’d be), and a table with a stack of second hand CDs that drew my attention. These turned out to be a mix of portuguese music dotted with titles I recognised, including some random pop hit compilations as well as something one doesn’t see every day, the Body of Evidence soundtrack. Sadly there’s no Madonna on the soundtrack so I passed on that one.

Our way back included the outside of Jeronimo’s Monastery, or at least that’s what it’ll forever be in my mind with a hard “J” and pronounced exactly like I’m about to jump into a pool (sorry St Jerome and the Portuguese pronunciation: maybe it could be renamed the Monastery of the Pronunciation of St Jerome, has a ring to it). It’s first occupants were Hieronymite monks, who I know nothing about but I’m going to guess they weren’t founded by Hieronymous Bosch. Serendipitously I was wearing my well-travelled Clouds t-shirt (spoiler alert, you’ll see it again when we get to the Prado in Madrid). It’s another building that survived the earthquake, and looks amazing on the outside. even though it too is undergoing restoration. If I half assed researched correctly (i.e. skimmed wikipedia) it’s the current or former resting place of Portuguese monarchs. But as today’s Easter Sunday, the place was closed, so the closest we got were the huge front doors.

I’ve been denied entry to the occasional place in my time, but these was possible the most impressive doors metaphorically slammed in my face (I almost used “impressive” to describe them last paragraph but wanted to avoid the repetition, so take that Hemingway). To console ourselves we headed down the road to Pasteis de Belem, the bakery where it’s claimed Jeronimo’s Hieronymite’s custard tart recipe ended up in 1837, and they’ve been baking to that same secret recipe ever since. We all know they whole region of origin thing, like how outside of the Champagne region it’s just sparkling wine, this place has taken things a lot further, so only pastels baked in this shop can be referred to as Pasteis de Belem, out on the streets it’s just a sparkling Portuguese tart. We timed our visit just right, there was no queue to dine in so we took the opportunity to take a load off. We were guided through the maze of the building to a table, where I ordered a couple of the famed pasteis and L got the gluten free chocolate thing. This time I went with a glass of the reserve port with the pasteis (I’ve just worked out pastel is singular and pasteis is plural, and if I’ve typed “pasties” anywhere I’m blaming autocorrect), and this turned out to be a very generous free pour well above the 5cl line. Given the exclusive nature of the pasteis, I was expecting a similar price tag, but they were 1.60 euro each so only marginally more than the 1.5 euro pastel I started the day with. The pasteis were very good, it seems that crunchy flaky pastry is part of what defines these, the custard soft and with a hint of vanilla, and some extra crunchy sugar on top. Very tasty.

We hopped a tram down to LX factory, about halfway between Belem and out hotel, and had a wander. A mix of local artists, eateries, drinking establishments, a portuguese hipster kind of open market. There’s also a multi story bookshop in an old industrial building, with a record shop specialising in jazz on an upper level (could the place get more hipster?). We browsed the various shops, workshops and stalls, saw some cute pottery, but nothing stood out enough to claim a place in our luggage home (we’re being cautious about this due to the haphazard routings home).

A lie down at the hotel and it was time to Fado. If you already know what fado is then you’re more knowledgeable than I was 24 hours ago. If you don’t, well I doubt my next few paragraphs will expand your wisdom greatly. The word fado stems from the latin word for fate. It’s a musical style that emerged in the last 200 years in Portugal, where singers and musicians would perform songs about the streets, of love lost, gained, then lost again, of death, misery, pain, all manner of misfortune. As our brief introduction said, tales of “encounters and disencounters” (not to be confused with discounters). So basically Portuguese murder ballads.

To experience fado we chose the Associacao de fado castro, who put on a dinner show full of local food and unlimited wine. It’s based in an old chapel, build on roman foundations, and up a big damn hill. Inside the building is quite magnificent, tall ceilings, communal tables, walls filled with old pictures and new graffiti. Even though we’d only booked that day we scored a front table, close enough to spit olive pits at the acoustic bass player if we so wished (we didn’t). On each table was a pot in the shape of a beehive that held a decent box red wine, and plates of beans, cheese, and charcuterie were waiting for us. In possible a slowlyandloudly first, I had a number of legume dishes that were worth writing about. One dish was a wonderful chickpea salad with codfish; another with some sweet and tasty green broad beans; and also some wonderfully salty lupins. Later came some hearty and salty Transmontana bean soup and some tempura style green beans. There was also a delightful cream tuna pate, home made herb butter, and later on were codfish fritters and some amazing beef pica-pau, small pieces of beef cooked perfectly and served with pickled vegetables. There was fried chicken, and to finish off, a divine rice pudding sprinkled with cinnamon. When L remarked how good it was, they brought her an extra serve. Suffice to say we ate our fill, and I had several cups of red wine.

The fad performance was what you expect when you expect the unexpected (I dedicate that sentence to Hemingway). A bunch of nondescript aging men took to the low stage. An acoustic bass, a nylon string guitar, and a portuguese guitar (which is a fascinatingly weird instrument). A large gent with a limp was assisted on stage, wearing the traditional garb of a black shirt, a neck tattoo that could have been done in a russian prison, and a prominent forehead scar that looked like it was the result of violence (though for all I know he slipped in the shower). In otherwords, this guy looked like someone I’d want on my side in a bar fight. The musicians started, and out came a mighty and sweet voice that could make anyone believe in angels. I don’t know what he was singing about, but his words carried amazing emotions. If this guy killed a man in Porto just to watch him die, I’d believe it. There were no microphones, no sound desk, no amplifiers, just 4 musicians and a room built to be acoustically sound. And it was amazing.

The guitarist, Pedro de Castro, was also the manager of the venue and is a renowned fado-ista or whatever such performers are called. It was incredible to see his fingers dancing over the strings of the instrument. The three musicians played well together, we were in good hands with them.

There was a break for more food and wine, then the next singer joined the trio. He was also very good, but didn’t quite match the intensity of the first singer. He probably only had his heart broken a few times in Almada. The third singer wore the traditional black shawl and sang powerfully, she likely broke the hearts of many men in Lisbon, maybe even provoked a few duels. Then the first singer came back for a couple more songs, including a singalong to show us how easy it was to sing in Portuguese. For all I know we were singing about murdering someone who looked the wrong way, but it felt good.

With all our sadness expressed and released, we disencountered back out into the streets, down the mighty hill, to our accommodations.

Tomorrow may be the day I explode from overeating: first a food tour, then likely my last chance to experience a francesinha. Wish my digestion good luck.