Lisboa and Sintra, Portugal

Literally hours after arriving back in Sevilla, Wes and I hopped an overnight bus to the Portuguese capital city of Lisbon (Lisboa in Portuguese). Wes learned Brazilian Portuguese some years ago while living in Costa Rica, and so he was eager to see how well he could communicate in this part of the Lusophone world. For my part, this was my second trip to Lisbon, but one I anticipated with much eagerness, having enjoyed my previous stay in 2004. In retrospect, it was the fitting end to our three city jaunt.

Lisbon shares a common historical and cultural legacy with both Seville and Marrakesh. Until the wars of the Catholic Reconquest in the medieval period, all three cities were part of the Muslim Caliphate of Cordoba, or Al-Andalus. In all three cities, the oldest neighborhoods date to well before the period of the Reconquista. While readers will recall that I hinted at the close artistic and architectural connections between Seville and Marrakesh in my previous post, it is worth mentioning that the iconic tile work found in both Seville and Marrakesh flourished in Lisbon as well, though taking on its own characteristic form. Indeed, the Portuguese have a national museum dedicated solely to azulejos (tiles), and most of the finest specimens here list Seville as their place of original provenance. Imagine such a thing on the Mall in Washington, DC. Oh, and for sixty years (1580-1640) Portugal was a part of Spain. Portuguese nationalists can thank a simultaneous revolt against the Spanish Crown that erupted in Catalonia for forcing the Spanish to concede to the split.

There’s no way around it, Lisbon was wet; uncharacteristically so according to the locals. Regardless, I don’t think I actually dried out while I was there. Given that nearly all of the city is built aside one of several hills that rise and fall around the urban nexus, the water seemed to come from sideways most of the time. That being said, the city was just as fantastic as I remembered it. Some of our more interesting experiences included listening to Fàdo (pronouced FAH-doo) in the Barrio Alto (again, that’s BAI-ho AL-toe), riding one of the city’s famous funiculars, and daily stops to A Ginjinha to sip ginja (cherry liquor) from plastic shot glasses in the late aftenoons.

We spent one particularly wet day in the Belém neighborhood visiting the Mosteiro de Jeronimos to see the final resting place of Vasco de Gama and what may be Europe most beautiful cloister, the immense Monumento a los Descubrimientos honoring early Portuguese explorers, a depressingly closed Castelo de Belém, and of course the world famous Única Fábrica dos Pastéis de Belém for the perfect snack.

As an aside, I also had squid stew in one of the cafes nearby that was killer, in a good way.

After a few days in the rainy capital, we jumped on a train for a short ride to Sintra. Itself a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the town sits amidst a natural park with a large medieval palace at its center and both a reconstructed Moorish castle and nineteenth century palace occupying the heights above.

The oldest royal palace in Portugal, the Sintra National Palace is perhaps best known for its elaborately tiled walls and giant twin chimneys, which for all their oddity add to the mystique of the place. The town was so captivating in the nineteenth century that it attracted leading members of the Romantic literary movement like the poet Lord Byron. The movement spurred reconstruction of the Castelo dos Mouros and the fantastical Pena National Palace with its multicolored facade and fairytale qualities.

On our last day in Lisbon we made it to the top of the Castelo de São Jorge to see the wet city from above, by midnight we boarded an overnight train to Madrid in order to connect Wes with his flight and for me to meet up with my friend Danny in La Latina. Rainy or otherwise, it was a nice escape and a much-need precursor to the two exceptionally busy work weeks that followed.

Marrakesh, Morocco

In early January, I traveled to sunny Marrakesh, Morocco, for my first trip to Africa. Along with my trustworthy travel companion, Wes, I boarded a cheap RyanAir flight across that “other” pond to Spain’s south. As you can imagine the difference from Europe was patent. Morocco was visibly different from Europe in more ways than one. Though the medieval layout of Seville can be vexing for even the most able navigator, the alleyways and corridors of Marrakesh pose infinite challenges. Of course, added to this confusion is the fact that a simple stroll along the shopping district requires avoiding not only the various wares of shops, piled high and out into the street, but also a flurry of motorized bicycles, older pedestrians in cloak-like jelabas with their traditional pointed hoods , running children, and the ever ubiquitous donkey cart. Added to the cacophony of vendors hawking goods in Arabic, French, Spanish, English, German, Italian, Japanese (I kid you not), and a myriad of other languages I could not quite make out, the regular Muslim calls to prayer issued from the multitude of minarets that dotted the skyline were affirming of the foreignness of this new place. Were those factors not enough, the smell of spices that wafted through the air and mixed with that of sizzling lamb cooked atop butane burners only further served to confirm the truly exotic character of the city. In short, these things together made for a rich, at times even overwhelming, deluge for the senses.

Marrakesh, Morocco’s “red city,” so named for the color of its buildings and not for its political leanings, was a truly very beautiful city. It sits inland from the coast, a short distance from the waterfall laden foothills and snowcapped peaks of the High Atlas Mountains. The old portion of the walled city, or Medina, is built almost entirely out of mud. Deep in its center is spread an elaborate maze of souks, enclosed alleyways flanked on all sides by booth upon booth of vendors. This section of the city sits alongside a newer one known as the Ville Nouvelle, a cosmopolitan mix of Arab and French banks, McDonald’s restaurants, and Italian-style gelaterias, nestled amidst modern highrise architecture.

The city’s main square, or Place Djemaa el Fna, serves as the central hub of all activity in the city. During the day, snake charmers performed along aside men with pet monkeys, Berber water vendors, dried fruit carts, street gymnasts, and dancers with twirling Fez caps.

In the nighttime, the same space transformed with the addition of more than one hundred temporary tents for food vendors and a changeover in sort of open-air performers. Replacing the daytime groups, musical bands, storytellers, and theatrical groups with actors in drag (women do not perform on the street at night unless they are in another line of work), drew crowds that filled the square with more even more people.

Lunch and dinner was usually a mix of cous-cous, stews cooked in conical tagine dishes, shish kebabs, and olives mixed with lemon and chili. We never did make over to the stands ladling out cooked snails from enormous metal braziers. No meal was complete without mint tea.

Of course, true to Muslim principle alcohol was not an option.

After dinner, ginseng and clove chai, transported to the square in giant paste-like blocks (check out the picture, we thought it was chocolate at first), mysteriosly beckoned.

By far the most monumental sight we saw was the former Madrasa Ben Youssef, a former Koranic school built in the 1500s.

Reminiscent of both the Mezquita in Cordoba and the Real Alcazar in Seville, though built a few centuries after both structures, the tile-work in this structure was some of the more elaborate I’ve seen to date. Adjoining this structure stood ruins of the city that dated to the Almoravid Dynasty in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Indeed, Morocco’s history is tied closely with that of Spain. The city’s largest minaret, part of the Koutoubia Mosque complex was built at the same time as the Moorish predecessor to Seville’s La Giralda (See my earlier post on the Cathedral), and the two are sometime considered sisters of one another. Also impressive, were the Saadian Tombs, which dated to roughly the same period as the Madrasa.

The sheer bulk of our time was spent in the souks.

These were obviously a feast for the eyes, offering everything from honey soaked sweets to Berber rugs, and a whole lot more in between, but half of the fun was the actual process of bartering for goods using a carefully balanced technique that bordered on disinterest and a somewhat honest insistence in limited personal funds that was, I imagine, hardly convincing. On two occasions, once in a spice shop cum apothecary and again in the textile shop, we passed time sipping tea with the owners, chatting away in English, Spanish, and very broken French about the many curiosities of our two cultures. It was a very enlightening trip.

Cabalgata de Los Reyes Magos

Before I skip ahead to my Morocco trip, I want to at least mention the Cabalgata de Los Reyes Magos. As I mentioned in a prior post, the major holiday gift giving occasion in Spain is not Christmas Day or even Christmas Eve. The main event actually falls more than a week after the Christmas, on what is sometimes referred to as the Day of the Epiphany (January 6) or El Día de Los Tres Reyes in the Spanish-speaking world. The holiday commemorates the visit of the three kings (Melchor, Gaspar, and Baltasar) to the infant Jesus. Traditionally, children leave their shoes out at night and in the morning they are filled with sweets and other presents.

In Sevilla, as in other towns across Spain, the ayuntamiento (city government) working in conjunction with other groups (most notably the Ateneo de Sevilla in this case) puts on an elaborate production.

On January 4, three men, usually leading local figures, appear before city hall dressed to play the part (including the use of black face paint for King Balthasar!) with an entourage of participants so as to ask the alcalde (mayor) for the right to parade through town the following day. On January 5, the cabalgata, or “cavalcade,” weaves through the city during the late afternoon and evening for upwards of six hours. The floats range in theme from the carriages of the kings themselves to space shuttles and curious homage to Indiana Jones. As the holiday is largely a children’s celebration, children ride on top tossing caramelos (hard candies, not caramels) to the waving spectators.

It seems maximizing one’s personal take of caramelos from the event is somewhat of a closely guarded secret among Spaniards. The best locations to watch the event are staked out early and terraces overlooking the parade route are shared only with the closest of friends. I was especially impressed by the upturned umbrellas used on the streets. Even if one were to make out poorly on the streets, there should be a Roscón de Reyes waiting back home. This treat, a cross between a traditional fruit cake and a New Orleans-style “king cake,” is only available in the week leading up to January 6, and makes for a slightly better than usual daily merienda, or mid-afternoon snack.