JULY 5, 2019 – Intrigued by Portugal during last year’s sojourn, my wife and I decided to explore more of the country after our son’s wedding there two weeks ago. Last year, our son and his now bride did all the planning, driving and navigation; managed every detail. This year we relied solely on our own devices—smartphone apps and rental car navigation system. We survived.
More than survive, we thrived.
Portugal is the geographical size of Indiana, with a population of 10.3 million. (Thirty-sixth in annual per capita GDP.) But given its location and colorful history, Portugal balloons in direct proportion to the depth of the student-visitor’s exploration.
Our route: Lisbon to Viseu in Beira Alto province, then to the wedding site in Cortiços in the region of Trás-os-Montes. After the festivities—Mercado de Cavaleiros, closest commercial center to Cortiços; Trancoso, in Beira Alta; Parque Natural da Serra da Estrela, including Linhares and Sabugueiro, highest village in Portugal, and the summit of Torre, highest mountain in Portugal, also in Beira Alta; Évora, capital of the Alentejo region; Tavira and west to Lagos, Portimão, Burgau, Sagres and Cabo de São Vincente, the extreme southeast corner of Portugal (and continental Europe), all along the southern coast of the Algarve region; then northwest back to Lisbon.
Prior to diving into, then driving into and around, Portugal, all but “Lisbon” of the highlighted place names (let alone the regions in which they are located) were wholly unknown to me.
I thought the Portuguese language was as close to Spanish as Swedish is to Norwegian, not knowing that to the ear of an Anglophone, Portuguese would sound Slavic, given the “sh” sound assigned to so many of its “s’s.”
In further naïveté, I thought Portuguese were ethnically homogenous, with a non-descript, ho-hum history apart from the exploits of Bartolomeu Dias, Vasco de Gama, and Ferdinand Magellan (though sailing for the Spanish), mere footnotes in our middle school history textbooks (though I’d vaguely remembered “Prince Henry the Navigator” from a college survey course breezily entitled, The History of Western Civilization.) The “João” and “Manuel” monarchies? The Portuguese Inquisition and Reconquista? Franco’s Portuguese counterpart, Salazar? Zero clue.
Portugal’s Homer, Luís Camões? Portugal’s modern Shakespeare, Fernando Pessoa? Portugal’s critic laureate, Antero de Quental? Never heard of them.
I had no clue that the Barcelos Rooster was the unofficial symbol of Portugal and hadn’t the faintest notion about the 15th century fable behind the symbol; nor did I have any idea about the other ubiquitous, winged motif of Portugal—the swallow, reincarnated in ceramic upon the shelves of every tourist shop—until we traveled the length of the country and witnessed these happy birds flitting about everywhere.
Portugal’s modern economic travails and recovery? Again, I’d been clueless.
Now that I’m in the deep—“bottomless”?—end of the “Portuguese pool,” I appreciate how rich, colorful and infinitely complex it is. And far from being a “pool,” it is an ocean—make that oceans, for to understand the world, you need to understand Portugal.
© 2019 Eric Nilsson
