Lisbon, from heads to tales
The glamorous attractions of Lisbon tend to hide away the real life inside them. Sometimes, living the boulevards and having a glimpse on the narrow streets, parallel with the wide boulevard is like watching a reality show, taking place in a studio with no recording cameras. The two sides of a story are best shown by chance and by having luck as your guide. This is a short glimpse of such a reality show.
The road to “Liberdade”
Copyright Alexandra Mihale
Marcques de Pombal simply stays there on his bed-plate, close to the city centre, facing the Rio Taja, just like a sailor on top of his Galley’s mast, looking for land after a long journey. It is the most impressive monument in the area, perfect to play the role of block-start for any itinerary in Lisbon.
Heads, towards the Avenida da Liberdade, living Marcques behind. The Avenida is heading towards the Atlantic, dammed up by old palm and chestnut trees. It is one of the main arteries that link the rest of Lisbon to its heart, the Baixa.
The tourists seem to mind nothing but their cameras while some policemen are solving a traffic jam caused by a small accident near the Eduardo the 7th Park. A day as any other; around, the city minds its own business. You are one of many.
Further into the “Liberdade”. Next to a bank, some businessmen seem to have forgotten about the green light and keep on doing their math out loud. They are not foreigners but also speak words few understand. Here and there, strangers kindly take the pictures of foreign lovers, when asked to. The tired rest their feet lying on the benches. Pigeons do the same thing, sitting on the heads of some famous writers long passed away.
Poor “Alegria”
Copyright Alexandra Mihale
When Liberdade meets Alegria, it’s tales. Left. Here, the boulevards’ glamour disappears swiftly, while the traffic noise dissolves into ragged walls covered more by drying clothes than plaster. It may seem uncanny but Lisbon’s flavour does not disappear. Here begins the middle-class life, protected from the tourists that invade the city, just like a swarm of clicking insects, taking photos one after another.
Here, instead of photo-cameras, people walk with groceries bags in their hands, while backpacks are only worn by the little-ones returning back from school. Luis and his family are standing in front of their house, enjoying lunch, in the space left free by a car that parted from the sidewalk provisory parking lot. They’re having fish.
“We stay like this when we are all at home. This is fish. It is good”, Luis says, while his wife laughs loudly of her husbands’ attempt to speak a foreign language. The “sight” of English seems to attract some other people and pairs of eyes to appear in the windows like some portrait exhibition framed by an unconventional artist.
Ripples and Clicks
Heads, Tales, Tales, Heads. The Miradouro de S. Pedro de Alcantara appears. Here, autumn feels at home, amongst the continental trees undressing their leaves. The city seems to belong to the tourists again. Clicks everywhere, sometimes rookie flashes. Sitting on a bench, in a part of the Miradouro where ripple of the fountain water replaces the clicks, Simon writes his lessons.
He is from London, and came to Lisbon a few years ago, as a teacher. “I never thought I’d stay here. But the city got to me. It will be a hard decision to make, the one of returning home. I am here for two years and already start feeling at home”, says the 27 year-old English teacher, looking towards the Baixa, which seems so silent from above.
Downtown Lisbon
Copyright Alexandra Mihale
Heads, Tales, Heads, doesn’t matter. The grilled like streets of the Baixa always take you to the same place after a while. Although confusing it’s quite impossible to get lost. Tourists swarming everywhere, terraces, cafés and bars packed up with people, eager to have a taste of the Portuguese Alenquer, Bucelas or Porto wine, and why not, Sagres Beer or Sangria. All these, on the fade sound of Fado music, sang out through the speakers set up on a classical car on the Rua da Prata. Genuine Portuguese music bringing smiles of satisfaction on hundreds of lips talking God knows how many other languages.
Gracias or Obrigado, Lisbon
Slightly Heads and then high above, in the café on top of Santa Justa Tower, Leonardo sings his part. Wearing a warm coloured T-shirt, with the guitar in one hand and a soft, rather feminine voice, he brings smiles and buoyancy between the couples or the tourists enjoying their afternoons on top of downtown Lisbon. He sings about love, in it’s own language, spoken both here and back home, in Brazil. Although most of the people there don’t understand his words, everybody seems to get the idea. And this makes Leonardo happy. “Beautiful voice”, said in more than one language is being said while going down the iron stairs of Santa Justa. Then, it’s tales again, for the last time: the Rossio Square. This lively, broad square makes up the lungs of Baixa. Many choose it as a starting point of an itinerary guided by chance on the streets of Lisbon.
Adrian M. Popa
