Lisboa, Portugal

As drifters, we constantly have our ear on the ground to feel the beat of the moment and get inspired for our next destinations. We started to perceive repeated signals of something special happening in Lisbon since a few years. The country was in a slump for some years during the 80s and 90s, but has since bounced back and become highly attractive to a wide variety of people from artists to business men, from designers to chefs, from Americans to Europeans… Somehow, though we have drifted throughout Europe we curiously had never made it to Portugal. The timing was right.

A major part of the chemistry that a drifter experiences with any place has to do with its place in the space time continuum of culture and ideas, in other words where does it fit in its ever elusive zeitgeist. To feel its pulse, it seems crucial to observe how it connects to its immediate environment and within the larger context, how its history and art resonates with the frequency of our times. This is the drifter’s ultimate rush, losing himself somewhere, penetrate its bone marrow, hear its heartbeat, taste its DNA and reach a state of flow in which his creative vision lights up and blooms on its tempo. It is supremely hard to explain, and almost impossible to bottle but when one achieves it, whatever he creates becomes timeless and unbelievably precious.

Our curiosity was therefore extremely aroused as we landed on Lisbon Portela Airport one late Saturday in the middle of November. Everything we knew of Portugal, from the food we had tasted in Portuguese restaurants, to the Fado we had listened, to the terrific surf spots we’ve heard about, to the bits of its long and glorious history we were familiar with, everything was an invitation.

It starts, as often, at the airport. People usually can't wait to leave but we always pay attention, lift our noses, amp up our ears, peel our eyes, initiating our discovery phase. Airports are fascinating places that send cryptic and involuntary messages about the city and country they serve and represent. They are all different in many ways and yet very similar in many others. Their design and architecture, the way they channel passengers, especially international ones, the way their immigration officers greet you, their public transportation options, the general mood they exhale, all inform the drifter. With time, we have developed the skill to identify patterns, gather precious information to tune in on the right frequency for our journey.

Portela Airport, also known as Humberto Delgado Airport was built during WWII and shows the marks of an old structure that has had to cope with massive passenger growth. There are two terminals which have been continuously upgraded and expended… as if in urgency, to cope with rising waters it was struggling to contain. We land and actually deplane on the tarmac, taking a bus to the terminal… This is no common any longer in major capital hubs. Last time we did this was in the tiny post-stamp airport of a Caribbean island... maybe Turcs & Caicos. Back to the future! Inside, layout seems circumvallated and complex as many others in Europe. As we exit passenger zone and enter the main halls, we try to find our bearings and identify if we are in terminal 1 or 2, and where to best get public transportation into the city. A large bakery “Padaria Lisboa”, is standing almost directly opposite the international arrival exit. It smells good, the breads look fantastic, and the customers smiling sipping coffee. As we walk around following the signs, we get disoriented a couple of times, finding ourselves in apparent dead-ends of the departure area then towards Terminal 1’s parking. When we finally make it to the point of access of the public transportation, our general feeling is one of joyful disorganization, or to be fair, of an organism that has its own inscrutable logics and dynamics that has grown overtime to adjust to unforeseen challenges. It is close from the city center (less than 6 miles).

We have chosen to stay in the eastern part of the city, up the hillside close from the Castelo Sao Jorge in the bairro (neighborhood) Alfama on the eastern side. The ride is short, about twenty minutes with normally dense traffic. The more recent outskirts of the city, with their block buildings and suburban feel do not look as run down and grim as many of their European counterparts. We also note a vivid street art activity with many murals and graffitis, some of them quite impressive.

As we penetrate Lisbon’s center, large avenues with wide pedestrian areas in their centers, peppered by benches, trees and walkways greet us. Campo Grande, Republica, Fontes Pereira de Melo and Libertade grab our attention and already sing the schwinting (don’t Google it, I made it up…) melodies of the Portuguese language.

We quickly drop our bags and start stomping the city. There is nothing like walking to get acquainted with an urban space. To get the most out of your drift, have a semi idea of where you want to go and what you want to do, then let your feet and instincts take you places, draw emotional lines, connect mental dots and feel… There is a moment after long hours of walking when one meets Aldous Huxley; as we begin to glide through, every wall turns into a window, obstacles turn into invitations, the derelict becomes beautiful and eventually  “everything appears to [us] as they are, infinite”.

Tonight, we walk down the hill cross a square, two streets, an avenue and keep West, uphill through narrow passageways and slithering streets. It’s  steep which doesn’t impede restaurants from having tables set outside, as if in the luxurious dining room of the sinking Titanic, defying the reality of the terrain. The weather is warm and the night is fair. After energetically going up our appetite has opened and we find ourselves in front of the Cervejeria Trindade (http://www.cervejariatrindade.pt). It has all the make of a tourist hang out but we’re hungry and it looks impressive inside. Indeed, behind a bar area are two long colorful dining rooms with high ceiling with naïve religious theme paintings on the walls, large rectangular wooden tables and benches, waiters dressed as monks, provide an inviting environment. The restaurant, built on the site of a XIIIth monastery that was destroyed and rebuilt several times, is an interesting place, obviously banking on its landmark status but manages to remain simple, well priced and satisfying. They do not brew beer any longer, but serve the nonetheless delicious Sagres Bohemia (Portugal’s major brand). The food is good (we particularly enjoy garlic shrimp and clam with parsley), the mood is glorious.

Garlic and Olive Oil Nation

After a good coffee, we resume our strolling and go back down the lower part of the city. In Lisbon, you are never walking long without going either uphill or downhill. Its topography is one of its most salient trait. Settlers, conquerors, merchants, entrepreneurs have been seduced by its strategic location on the western coast of Europe, inside an estuary that protects it from the ocean (one hypothesis on the etymology of the name Lisboa is the Phœnician “Alis-Ubo”, safe harbour) . They drew crazy and talented engineers, architects and builders, who all defied the landscape over centuries to build the most incongruous city with beautiful houses, majestic castles, imposing churches and refreshing parks. Commerce and culture flourished literally for thousands of years as Lisbon is one of the oldest cities in the world, older even than Paris or Rome. Throughout this outrageously rich history, something else has shaped its identity to its core, something beyond the merchants, more powerful than the Church, more longlasting that the four centuries of Moorish occupation. Something not human; earthquakes. Because of its topography and extraordinary location, Lisbon has suffered many earthquakes, the most devastating one occurring in 1755. The magnitude of the seism, the tsunami and fires it caused nearly flattened it and killed about 20% of its inhabitants (thirty to forty thousand of an estimated two hundred to two hundred and thirty thousand). The scars it left are still visible (in the magnificent Convento do Carmo for exemple). More deeply, seismic cities have their own vibration deeply connected to the planet’s breath and coughs.

Drifting through the city is therefore good exercise, challenging for weak legs but more than worth it for the constant visual orgasm out procures. Nearly every point within the city offers either a furiously beautiful view, a colorful street perspective, a magnificent building, interesting street art… We walked about thirteen miles per day, insatiable, driven by the magnetic energy that the city exudes. There is no feeling like getting lost in the narrow passages from a church to a plaza, walk some more and suddenly arrive on a larger street or avenue, make a few more turns and find yourself walking up some stairs zigzagging through small streets with laundry drying outside the windows, tiles of all colors and patterns covering the walls, losing your breath as you suddenly reach a big archway leading to a castle or the ruin of a former monastery… Embrace Lisbon and let her swallow you, digest you until you’ve seen its center from the Belem tower to the miroudoro de Nossa Senhora do Monte, from the Praza do Comercio to the Parque Eduardo VII, from miroudoro de Sao Pedro de Alcántara to the Castelo Sao Jorge… Walk until your legs feel like stone and you are dizzy... Stop here and there for a pastel de nata, a coffee, a beer or to rest on a bench in a small plaza to hear the voice of the street where elderly Portuguese men get together to play cards or women take the children to play. The city consumes us. We are transformed.

The feeling of being in a medieval labyrinth is exhilarating but living in it, after a few months, years… we see how it could become slightly claustrophobic… where it not for the presence of the water of the river Tagus as it kisses the Atlantic. The boardwalk is literally a window wide open to the southern side of the estuary from which you can see the bridge of 25 de Abril and the Cristo Rei. Even as you walk away from it and cannot see the water anylonger you can still feel its presence as if its light was drenching every beco (alley), as if its air was filling every travessa (passage), as if the opportunities it offers were sown in every avenida. Every corner smells like freedom. Arriving and leaving Lisbon is easy. Settling here soon becomes a whisper… then a temptation…

It crosses our minds… relocating deesh dash to Lisbon… How would it affect our sense of drifting? We have experienced such temptation before (in Reykjavik, in Vancouver…) And why not entertain it? Lisbon is seriously attractive, walkable, flavorful, open on the ocean, takes food and coffee very seriously, has a vivid art scene… Portuguese people are nice and warm. The demography seems to have the right mix of youth and elderly, locals and foreigners, merchants and artists, engineers and administrators; enough of each to drive change and cultivate History at the same time.

In the end, we are struck by the fluidity of the city. It seems there is no separation between the water of the Tagus and the stones of the buildings, between the waves in the Atlantic and the bairros scattered on the hills… we swim in the streets of Lisboa, we glide, we dream… Every wall inspires us with the patterns of the tiles, the colors of a painting, the words of a graffiti. Our six senses are amped… our minds are fertilized. The divine and the derelict mingle harmoniously, drying laundry caresses centuries old carvings… Bright yellow surfaces, delicate green lace patterns, glittering blue waters, melting sweet eggs, laser sharp coffee roast, smoothly balanced bacalhau and hundreds of thousands of steps… Old spice merchants, punk street artists, fearless ocean explorers, tavern owners, fado singers, Roman centurion, card-playing old men, moor architects, tourists, Phoenician sailors, church-going grandmothers, Lisbon’s flesh and blood since over two thousand years. Alive. A strong after taste of Rio de Janiero, a whisper of San Francisco, a whiff of Rome, and so many more notes compose the essence of Portugal and its absolutely exquisite flavor. To drink with no moderation what so ever.

Addendum: about psychedelics in Portugal:

In 2001 Portugal made the drastic decision to decriminalize the possession of all drugs (from weed to heroin and everything in between). This does not make any of them legal! But if caught with some for your own consumption, no criminal charges are pressed. Since then, metrics on the impact of this decision show no adverse effect on drug-use and positive impact on drug-related damage on social tissue and drug-related pathologies. This said, the city center is crowded with drug dealers offering marijuana, cocaine and whatever else you’d wish. They come forward in very animated public places as soon as the night has fallen and seem to be tolerated. Deesh dash is way too obsessed about their health, neurotic about the quality of the product it consumes and careful, to ever engage in any kind of bartering with these gentlemen so we passed.

Besides, as explain we were naturally high most of the time just by losing ourselves walking marathons in the city. It was enough. Almost… One evening back at the apartment, a poppy seed cookie baked by our uncle Jim with an unknown but most probably insanely high dosage of THC, made us see Lisboa’s cheerful up-side-down in four dimensions. Its magic, its charm and its poetry were the perfect launch pad for Uncle Jim space rocket.