Eight weeks.
Our last day here in Lisbon, in Portugal, in Europe.
It was so silent last night, a Sunday night, and our room is high up above the streets that the sound doesn’t carry.
We talked yesterday about taking the train for a day trip to Sintra, or perhaps getting in a museum, or walking up to the castle or touring yet another cathedral. But when I woke this morning I knew exactly what to do today.
Have you ever asked yourself that old question, “If I had one day to live, how would I spend it?”
Well, I have one day left to live in Portugal.
So I have to answer that question.
By 6:30 I was out, just around the corner, sitting in front of our closest neighborhood bar/café.
Cappuccino in my hands, for it is a cool, cloudy morning.
The yellow trolley line runs in front of me, around the curve and below me. There is a major stop in front of the cathedral, by the park gate. I am trying to figure out the schedule just by watching, timing the cars’ arrival.
The cathedral dome looms white against the grey sky in front of me, capped by a green globe and cross, eight circle windows like eyes set around the dome. There is a tall cuppolla set on the top, it has tall arched glass and is surrounded at the base by a black, intricate ironwork railing. The dome seems to be floating; trees cover the cathedral itself, the bell towers, everything else, the dome appears as a cut out, pasted just right there, in the open space.
About every ten minutes another jet flies by, moving across the gap of sky between the done and trees.
7:50 the bell starts to toll, a regular rhythm.
The regulars start to drop by. Three guys on the way to work set their lit cigarettes on ashtray on the outside table next to me, stop in, slam a quick café, then laughing, exit, pick up their cigarettes and walk on.
A lady in red housecoat walks slowly in, scruffy white dog on a leash, pushing a shopping bag carrier.
“Dia.”
She and the owner talk a while as she sips her café com leite.
.
A girl hurries by, high heels and nice clothes, she throws a quick “Dia” in the open door and the shout returns from the barista.
The trolleys are starting to fill a little more each trip. The first ones by had one or two riders, now they hold maybe ten. No tourists out yet, hanging onto the outside, riding the platforms.
8:00
The church bells toll: four sets of two (to mark the top of the hour) followed by eight long bongs. I don’t even have to look at a clock, in fifteen minutes there will be one set of two to mark the passing of another quarter of one-twentyfourth of today.
The trolleys roll by, the jets shoot out of the dome and into the tree, the people come by shouting “Dia” and the bells.
What will you do if you have just one day left to live?
I am marking time.
I am living each moment, right now, right here, literally watching and hearing the minutes go by.
I love the casualness of these cafés, and yet the formal rules.
If you buy even one espresso, the cheapest drink, and sit, the table is yours until closing time if you wish.
The price lists stuck up on the wall, so you know what to pay. Café (espresso) is €0,60 a shot here, a com leite is €1, more if you take a sit, less to stand and slam.
My cappuccino is cheap at €1,10 so I order a second.
Two older ladies meet on the sidewalk across the street, laughing and hugging they kiss-kiss-kiss and talk for five minutes before moving on. I wonder how many years they have known each other, how many kisses and hugs and laughs exchanged?
“Dia”
An older man pops in, slams an already waiting café, plunks down the euro (the exact change was already waiting by his cup) and walks out.
Bong bong. 8:15.
Bong bong. Bong bong. 8:30
Bong bong. Bong bong. Bong bong. 8:45
Now cars are starting to go by as well, more people walking, a few more in the trolleys.
It is cold this morning, the clouds are low and moving across the sky, and the yellow trolleys provide a cheerful, laughing contrast to all the grey and white.
The café is getting busier, the streets are waking up, it is about time for me to head up and wake Gail.
As we eat breakfast the clouds clear, so it is bright and warm as we set out.
We are on a quest: to find the Largo de São Miguel, hidden somewhere in the maze of the Alfama.
The Alfama is a tangle of streets that runs somewhere below São Jorge Castle. The area was not destroyed during the earthquake in 1755, and so it is an old tangled confusing mess of streets and alleys running all over. I read that the streets were designed that way, on purpose, to frustrate attackers.
Somewhere in there is a square called São Miguel, which the B&B host assures me is a very local, very typical place.
We walk through our area, the Bairro Alto, taking yet another, new street we have not walked before. This actually turns out to be a pretty nice walk, down the hill, following the tram tracks, past the Congress Building, to a place where the road narrows to one lane and snakes through about a half kilometer of buildings, before opening up again.
It is here, in the belly of the snake, that we find a graphic artist with a small shop. She has several nice books of loose prints, some framed on the walls, and then some nice, hand printed original postcard sized engravings. We look, chat with her, and buy a few. A little way’s further on is an artists kind of co-op, again we find a great hand painted tile and a couple other things which soon loosen a few more euro from my pocket.
After the street widens out again we climb back up, up past some quirky street art, past a cafe we are interested in for tonight’s dinner (We notice the “Open 19-23:00” sign, but miss the “Fechado Domingo e Segunda-feira” one.) past another cute, triangle shaped café perched on a street - split, the left side street dropping off, the right heading level.
On past the square where we ate dinner two days ago, and then we turn left to drop into the heart of the valley.
We have not been down this street before. It leads us to a steep side where it seems we are stuck on a view terrace. Over on the side a set of steps leads down, then more; we drop down staircases, down down down the steps, losing count, heading into the Baixa at the bottom of the U valley. About every fifty steps there is a large, flat space, each one big enough to host a café with four or six umbrellas’ worth of tables.
We are dumped out at the bottom near the big monument square with fountains. Cutting straight across, we hook around the top of the shopping district, and hit the last street, a grimy looking one on the edge of the seedy area of town.
I nod to the left, and we take the first street that heads into the questionable looking side. The street quickly twists right, then left, darkens into an alley narrow enough the sun doesn’t shine in. We are in the Alfama.
Somewhere in here, among tens of churches, is one for São Miguel, with a little, warped-kite shaped plaza and a small café.
We are going to have wine there, maybe eat lunch.
Well, it is about 14:00 and we still have not found the plaza, but we are high in the neighborhood now, right by São Antonio, the Big Dog church of the area. Everybody loves São Antonio; his tiled picture is on most every house, killing a dragon. We run into a café, tucked up against a building, two umbrellas shoehorned in under a large tree, just down from the Cathedral. It is the Le Petit Café, and a table had just opened up, so we decided to take a break. The ground is so steep, so uneven that the outside eating area is built up on a wooden deck. We sit back against the building and watch the trolleys rumble by on the street, tourists leaning out and photographing us looking at them.
We have a very light snack of bread with sun dried tomatoes, pesto and tomato butter, water and a half litre of red wine. Fortified and renewed by the wine, we set out again, twisting up onto a sudden opening. We are on some view terrace, “Something da Sol” and it is wide enough the sun does come here. The views over the jumble of the Alfama are wonderful, the bay is blue below, there are people sitting at multiple cafés, and we can stop and look.
At first glance I see six churches we have not been to; on second look I notice four or five more, any of which could be São Miguel. Half are above us, half below.
There is an old, blue and white tiled view of the city. Supposedly it is how Lisboa looked before the earthquake, and it is a magnificent, huge tile work and if that is true, it should be protected. It is starting to show its age.
We walk on and come to a fork in the street, small triangle shaped park with one tree and one umbrella at the fork. Left is up, right is down.
I firmly believe in staying high, because it is always easier to go down later… for some reason we head right instead.
We twist right, left, right, the alleys narrow.
We come upon a couple with a stroller and baby, the woman is limping. We can barely communicate, but it turns out she has stepped on a shard of glass and cut her foot, so Gail pulls a wipe and bandaid out of her pack to give the lady. They have a ways to go before they can get to a street wide enough for a taxi.
We drop onto a cross street. It is a little wider, so I glance up at the name.
Rue São Miguel.
The promised land.
The church, and square, must be here somewhere.
To the left there is a twist, a turn, and looking up I can see a church steeple shining white against the slice of sky.
The name of the cross street is São Lucia, so we turn back the other way.
More and more alleys named São Miguel this and São Miguel that.
Like a funnel that we have entered through the bottom, suddenly the way widens and we pop out in front of a tall, white plain looking church, invisibly tucked into a little, bent-kite shaped plaza, and up a set of stairs on a flat area tucked back between several houses is a café, roofed over by a huge grape vine.
Largo de São Miguel.
There is one table open of the six, so we take a sit. It is too late for food, but yes, we can have wine, so we celebrate our success, sit back and read for an hour and a half, sipping in the wine and the plaza.
You should look at the photos of the small square by the church.
Land is so tight here, it is the only open space for the neighborhood until you gat to the next church or next square.
Look close at the photo… what do you see?
The answer is in the next photos. I had to stare at it for a while myself until suddenly it all fell into place.
It was past 17:30 when we accomplished our mission, and we knew from past experience if we wanted a seat for dinner we should hit the 19:00 opening, so we headed out of the maze by simply walking downhill. Any downhill fork we took, and soon we popped out right at the waterfront, found a taxi, and for €3,80 we were back home by 18:15.
We dropped our things and set right out again, for the little cafe we had seen.
The café with the “Closed Sunday and Monday sign.”
And today is Monday.
We noticed the sign right off this time.
What to do, what to do?
I remembered the cute, triangle shaped place just up the street, so we headed there. There were tables open; they don’t start serving until 19:30 so we grabbed a prime spot right at the edge of the street, good views both directions, and ordered wine. We drank away the twenty minutes until we could order food.
By then, the café was full, a crowd was gathering to wait for a place.
I ordered pork chop and mashed potatoes, Gail had a cheese and tomato sandwich.
A guy came by on his bike, dressed well, thirty something, he parked the bike close to us t run into the café. I motioned for him to pull it over close to me; I would keep an eye on it.
He tanked us, ran in, and came out a minute later. We talked for a minute or two, his English was good, and his name was Pedro.
Soon a couple of his friends dropped by and they all set off together.
About an hour later he returned, alone, just as we were finishing our wine and dinner. He pulled up, looked at us, and asked if he could sit for a minute with us and have a smoke?
We welcomed him, I got another glass and poured him the last of our wine.
An hour later he had ordered another litre of wine and we were still talking, listening to his life story.
I won’t put in all the details. I will tell you one story he told us:
Once he was at a café, there was a loud, fat man from Texas there, with fat fingers like a sausage. He and his friends were all talking loud and drinking, they invited Pedro and his girlfriend to have a glass as well.
The man was talking.
“I own so much land I can get up in the morning, get in my car, drive all day and when the sun sets I am still on my land.”
Pedro’s girlfriend said, “Oh, I once had a car like that too."
So, you should eat dinner at the little triangle cafe on the unnamed street.
I could take you to it, I could even tell you the name of it…
But I won’t.
You can see the photograph, but you will have to find it yourself.
Or get lost trying.
So it is 23:00 now, the full moon is over the bay, light shining on the water in a path directed right at me.
The castle is lit up, shining on the hilltop across the city, and the houses and streets are a mix of gold and white lights.
Off to my right, Jesus stands tall, his arms held open, blessing and welcoming us to Portugal.
The jets fly over, on about every ten minutes, telling me I have to leave.
We never did go to Sintra, though everybody says it is beautiful there.
We totally wasted today.
Another sip of wine, another ten minutes of looking.
One more jet goes by.
Another.
Trying to breath it all in.