Your courtesy compendium of links to the "Portugal Trip 2018" and "Focus on Portugal 2018" series.

Indeed, knowing that we'd be visiting Porto and Madeira, the winter of 2017-2018 became a veritable adult education course on all things Portuguese.

And that's just the way I love it.

Pleasure travel absent context simply isn't pleasant for me, and so I learned what I could; then we went, and I learned even more.

After 38 repetitions of this cycle, you'd think I'd qualify for a "life experience" Master of Arts degree. Maybe some day.


The travelogue, day by day:

Portugal Trip 2018 (1): A Tuesday arrival and introduction to Porto.

Portugal Trip 2018 (2): São Bento Railway Station, Mercado do Bolhão, Jardim da Cordoaria and a big Liverpool win.

Portugal Trip 2018 (3): A rainy day's Port lodge crawl in Vila Nova de Gaia, and an inaugural Francesinha sandwich.

Portugal Trip 2018 (4): Madeira – island of eternal spring (and fortified wine, Coral beer and black scabbard fish).

Portugal Trip 2018 (5): FC Porto versus SC Lusitania in Portuguese professional basketball.

Portugal Trip 2018 (6): Sunday at the beach, then some fine eating (Taberna Stº. António) and a solid craft beer bar (As 7 Maravilhas).

Portugal Trip 2018 (7): An epic stroll along the Douro to lunch at São Pedro da Afurada.

Portugal Trip 2018 (8): Beach, park and cemetery, with a few Spanish beers and tapas.

Portugal Trip 2018 (9): History, sandwiches, sunsets and craft beer on the final day in Porto.


Three epilogues:

Public art: Is it Funchal (Madeira) or New Albany (Indiana)?

Thanks for asking, Delta Air Lines. I'm happy to tell you how likely I am to recommend you to others.

ON THE AVENUES: The books I've been reading during the winter months (including the two consumed while in Porto).


"Focus on Portugal," a series that I prepared in advance and published while we were away.

Focus on Portugal: A history lesson upon arrival for a second visit to the country.

Focus on Portugal: Vila Nova de Gaia, the Douro and other tasty aspects of Port wine.

Focus on Portugal: Porto's quintessential Francesinha sandwich.

Focus on Portugal: Madeira, both islands and wine.

Focus on Portugal: Learn about the music called Fado.

Focus on Portugal: Was António de Oliveira Salazar an autocrat or a dictator? Tyrant or protector? It's complicated.

Focus on Portugal: The Carnation Revolution in 1974, and Portugal in the current age.

Focus on Portugal, which remains a central player in the world's production of natural cork.

Focus on Portugal: The characterful and historic azulejo tiles of Portugal.

Focus on Portugal: The characterful and historic azulejo tiles of Portugal.

I don't remember much about my first trip to Portugal in 2000, but the country's ubiquitous azulejo tile murals and decor have always stuck with me -- like the reaction I had upon arrival at the Pinhão Railway Station.

Pinhão Railway Station is a beautiful train station along the Douro Line, one of the most iconic rail journeys in Portugal. The station is a major tourist destination in the Alto Douro Wine Region. The first train arrived at the Pinhão Railway Station on 1 June, 1880, and for nearly one hundred years the station served as the primary transport site of people and goods into and out of the Douro Region. It was particularly important in the production process of the Douro Valley’s Port wine.

That's right; as incredible as it seems, the beautiful tile work is at a train station.

A Brief History of Portugal's Beautiful Azulejo Tiles, by Nina Santos (Culture Trip)

Azulejos date as far back as the 13th century, when the Moors invaded the land that now belongs to Spain and Portugal, but they secured their foothold in Portuguese culture between the 16th and 17th centuries. The word azulejo stems from Arabic roots, meaning ‘small polished stone’. Originally they were fairly simple structures cut into geometric shapes in neutral tones.

It wasn’t until Portugal’s King Manuel I visited Seville and brought the idea back, that Portugal truly adopted this artwork into its culture. The tiles were used to cover up the large areas of blank wall that were common inside buildings during the Gothic period.

Antique azulejos were decorated in a simple color palate, dominated by blues and whites. It is believed that these colors were influenced by the Age of Discoveries (15th – 18th centuries) and considered fashionable at the time. The other colors that appeared were yellow (sometimes looking gold) and green ...

Focus on Portugal, which remains a central player in the world's production of natural cork.

"Portugal produces about half the world output of commercial cork, and its exports over recent years have accounted for around 70 percent of world trade."

Cork - Cortiça

The precious and versatile vegetable tissue known as cork is the outer bark of the cork oak tree (Quercus suber or as the Portuguese call it sobreiro). Cork (cortiça) is most easily stripped off the tree in late spring and summer when the cells are turgid and fragile and tear without being damaged. The tree quickly forms new layers of cork and restores its protective barrier. No tree is cut down. This simple fact makes cork harvesting exceptionally sustainable, leading to a unique balance between people and nature.

Cork has a structure that you can compare with that from a honeycomb. Every cm2 consists of approximately 40 million cells. These cells, as well as the spaces in between, are filled with a kind of gas resembling air, without CO2. Thus the cork cells work as small sound and heat insulators and absorb pressure and shocks. This is what makes cork so remarkable. Up till today there has not been found any other material which combines the same characteristics as cork does.

Given the advent of synthetic cork, is there a future for cork wine stoppers?

... For long aging however, the only closure with an adequately long track record is natural cork. So to be safe, that is the closure to choose. Once we have solid long-term evaluations of synthetics and screw caps, it will be possible to judge their suitability for extended aging, such as more than ten years.

Over centuries, winemakers have consistently taken advantage of new technology to improve their product, from oak barrels to bottles to modern crushing and pressing equipment and micro-oxygenation. While manufactured closures have some key advantages, it is proving difficult to displace natural cork due to its centuries-old tradition, albeit with a few problems, and its connection to the natural environment.

Focus on Portugal: Craft beer in Portugal? Finally, the answer is yes.

For some unknown reason, Stephen missed the Super Bock Lounge at Francisco Sa Carneiro International Airport in Porto, Portugal.

Airport bars you want to get stuck in, by Stephen Beaumont (The Globe and Mail)

By the time you read this, I'll have heeded the call of duty and investigated. Of course, Super Bock is not "craft," although by most accounts, "craft" at long last has arrived in Portugal.

On the hop: Lisbon's exploding craft beer scene, by Kevin Raub (Lonely Planet; 2016)

A cold beer in Portugal has traditionally meant one of two things: Sagres or Super Bock. These two everyman lagers, created during military dictatorships, have dominated the country's beer landscape for decades.

But a hop-heavy suds revolution is brewing in Lisbon and beyond. Europe's oldest independent capital city is finally embracing the craft beer booze-fest.

Portugal's tyrannical two-brew past

Although its beer history isn't as famous or marketed quite as well as that of some of its European neighbours, Portugal-produced beer predates the country itself, going all the way back to pre-Roman Lusitania. But foreign influence was heavily muted during the Estado Novo, the totalitarian dictatorship that ran the small Iberian nation from 1933 to 1974. Two rebel-rousing domestic brands, Sagres and Super Bock, flowed freely from the taps with little competition. Coincidence that Lisbon-speak for a draught beer is imperial? Not likely.

"During the dictatorship, society was so nationalistic; they didn’t want to import or export, or the influence of anything coming in," says American chef/brewer Adam Heller, who recently opened Chimera Brewpub in Lisbon's industrially hip Alcântara neighbourhood. "They wanted to preserve their identity" ...

Just remember: Super Bock is neither "super" nor "bock," but the last time I visited Portugal -- 18 years and a whole different life ago -- it was a golden lager that worked just fine served very cold. There are several varieties these days, including a Stout and a Pilsener, but still no Bock.

In 2014, when NABC needed a beer for modeling our special one-off World Cup Series USA vs. Portugal brew, Super Bock yet again volunteered for duty.

By the way, there'll be no special World Cup Series brewed at NABC in 2018, unless Josh and Ben adopt a different nation as rooting interest. But what about craft beer in Porto?

Once again, Sara Riobom comes to the rescue at her Portoalities blog.

Ever since I lived in The Netherlands I started to really appreciate craft beer. Therefore, it’s with great enthusiasm that I wrote this Guide of 7 amazing craft beer pubs in Porto.

With luck, I've already checked out a couple of them.

Focus on Portugal: The Carnation Revolution in 1974, and Portugal in the current age.

Before the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia (1989), there came the Carnation Revolution in Portugal (1974).

Remembering Portugal’s Carnation Revolution (Freedom House)

... The Carnation Revolution—the first of the world’s many subsequent flower or color uprisings—is little remembered today. Its very success may account for its obscurity. At the time, however, the Portuguese developments were understood to be extraordinarily important. The Carnation Revolution brought about the overthrow of an entrenched right-wing dictatorship. It ended, once and for all, European colonialism in Africa. It was decisive in ensuring that at some time in the future, Europe could truly boast of being whole and free. It set the stage for peaceful and democratic change in neighboring Spain. It produced a democratic breakthrough at a time when strongmen and commissars seemed to be on the march around the globe. And it was eventually recognized as the event that triggered the “third wave” of democratization, a phenomenon that was to transform politics throughout the world.

There were immediate implications of the Carnation Revolution in Angola and other soon-to-be former Portuguese colonial realms.

Portugal's new regime pledged itself to end the colonial wars and began negotiations with the African independence movements. By the end of 1974, Portuguese troops had been withdrawn from Portuguese Guinea and the latter had become a UN member state. This was followed by the independence of Cape Verde, Mozambique, São Tomé and Príncipe and Angola in 1975. The Carnation Revolution in Portugal also led to Portugal's withdrawal from East Timor in south-east Asia. These events prompted a mass exodus of Portuguese citizens from Portugal's African territories (mostly from Angola and Mozambique), creating over a million Portuguese refugees — the retornados.

Portugal was accepted into the European Economic Community (now the EU) in 1986. At the time, the country was among the poorest in the EEC. It joined the Euro zone in 1999, and after a transitional period of three years, the escudo disappeared in 2002.

Between 2009-16 the Portuguese economy experienced a severe economic crisis – characterised by falling GDP, high unemployment, rising government debt and high bond yields. This was caused by a combination of the global recession, lack of competitiveness and limitations of being in the Euro.

Portugal's policy of austerity in the wake of the recession proceeded without the newsworthy tumult of protests in Greece. It was controversial nonetheless.

The Next Portuguese Revolution, by Mark Bergfeld (Jacobin; 2014)

... Beneath the cloak of unity, bitter wars have been raging over the nature of 1974–5, the government’s eager submission to the Troika’s austerity agenda, and whether the new Portuguese left is up for the task of providing a people ravaged by capitalism with a viable alternative to it ...

... While many of the gains of that revolution have been eroded, the poet Ary dos Santos reminds us that “no one will ever close the doors that April opened.”

To keep up with current events in Portugal (in English), visit The Portugal News Online.

Focus on Portugal: Was António de Oliveira Salazar an autocrat or a dictator? Tyrant or protector? It's complicated.

Photo credit

To put it mildly, the legacy of António de Oliveira Salazar is open to a variety of interpretations.

António de Oliveira Salazar GCSE, GCIC, GCTE, GColIH (28 April 1889 – 27 July 1970) was a Portuguese politician and economist who served as Prime Minister of Portugal for 36 years, from 1932 to 1968. Salazar founded and led the Estado Novo ("New State"), the corporatist authoritarian government that ruled Portugal until 1974.

Just 11 years ago -- a full 37 years following Salazar's death -- he was declared "the greatest Portuguese who ever lived," albeit in non-scientific voting conducted by a television show.

Nostalgia for António de Oliveira Salazar divides the Portuguese, by Dan Bilefsky (NYT)

SANTA COMBA DÃO, Portugal — When the Portuguese recently voted the former dictator António de Oliveira Salazar "the greatest Portuguese who ever lived" in a television show - passing over the most celebrated kings, poets and explorers in the nation's thousand-year history - the broadcaster RTP braced itself for a strong reaction. But what ensued resembled a national identity crisis ...

... Whatever the intrigue behind the voting, Fernando Dacosta, a biographer of Salazar, calls his victory the "Portuguese revenge" for disillusionment with the revolution of April 25, 1974, which overthrew the dictatorship but failed to deliver on its own promises. Today, Portugal is the poorest country in Western Europe, and its recent history is marred by corruption scandals.

"The Portuguese don't want to have Salazar back from the dead," says Dacosta, who was jailed several times as a student during the Salazar regime. "But they miss the dream they had in the past about a future that never came."

He said nostalgia for Salazar also reflected the "saudade," or longing, of the Portuguese soul, a melancholy, he noted, that is present in most things Portuguese like the existential angst of fado music.

There isn't much to be found in terms of English-language video documentaries about Salazar and the era of his preeminence. However, the films of Susana de Sousa Dias (including 48) strike me as a must-view.

48 (the title refers to the period of the dictatorship between 1926 and 1974) is perhaps the most radical response to this challenge, in that it offers nothing else but still images of faces and recordings of voices of those who were imprisoned by the regime. Mugshots taken on the moment of capture are accompanied by testimonies of survivors, relating their experience of the brutalities they endured in prison and the insidious system of oppression that kept the dictatorship in place for so long. But De Sousa Dias also manages to reframe and displace the meaning of these images by transforming what were originally small, generic images, useful for identifying enemies of the regime, into large-scale portraits that accentuate the dignity and shared humanity of these women and men whose name and age remain unknown to us.

During Salazar's 36 years as prime minister, he theoretically served at the discretion of the president. Reality was different, but in 1958 there was a presidential election with an opposition candidate, a military man named Humberto Delgado, seeking the office on a succinct platform.

After declaring his candidacy in the 1958 presidential election, Gen. Delgado was asked what he would do with Salazar if he became president. "Obviously, I'll sack him," was his reply.

The election was fixed, and Delgado lost. In 1965, he was murdered, and there wasn't much opposition to Salazar (and his successor) until the Carnation Revolution in 1974.

Focus on Portugal: Learn about the music called Fado.

In 2000 on my only previous trip to Portugal, I visited the Museu do Fado in Lisbon. I remember little, but a half-dozen CDs from the home selection go into the disc changer on occasion to offer a reminder of the music.

I like the overall ambiance of Fado, although specific tunes elude my untrained ears.

The video (above) is an excellent, short introduction to the genre. Perhaps the most truthful and succinct comment about the state of the musical art is provided by Raquel at Sara Riobom's Portoalities blog, in her installment about Fado in Porto.

Best places for Fado in Porto

Even though almost no Portuguese listens to Fado regularly (we’re sorry to break the myths!), we totally understand that you want to watch a live Fado show once in Porto. Therefore, we made a list of the best places for Fado in Porto. We hope you enjoy it!

Focus on Portugal: Madeira, both islands and wine.

"It was in July 1419 when this island was first discovered by Portuguese explorers. These two seafarers are Captains João Gonçalves Zarco and Tristão Vaz. The main reason why the two went on an expedition is because they were following the orders of Prince Henry the Navigator. He called for the best sea navigators and cartographers in all of Portuguese because he wanted to have more information about the West African coast. This was in the early part of the 15th Century."

Actually they're the Madeira Islands, archipelago and autonomous region of Portugal, and Madeira Island is the largest. The publisher's introduction to Madeira: the Islands and their Wines, by Richard Mayson, gets down to the point about Madeira's most famous export.

It is said that a fine wine gets better with age and of no wine is this more true than it is for madeira. Not only does madeira require cask-ageing in order to acquire its unique ‘maderised’ character but, unlike most other wines, it retains that character for decades, even several centuries. For heat and air, the sworn enemies of most wines and winemakers, conspire to turn Madeira into one of the most enthralling of the world’s wines as well as the most resilient. Madeira wines from the nineteenth and even the eighteenth centuries still retain an ethereal, youthful gloss. Once the cork is removed, the wine comes to no harm, even if the bottle is left open and on ullage for months on end. If ever there was a wine to take to a desert island this is it.

There's even a specialty fish.

Beautiful Madeira, the island of eternal spring, by Paul Ames (CNN)

... It's impossible to miss these nightmarish denizens of the deep laid out in the market. Shiny black snake-like things with bulging eyes and wolfish jaws.

Black scabbard fish is Madeira's favorite seafood. The firm white flesh is served everywhere -- often in unlikely combinations with fried bananas.

Next door to the market, the marble-fronted Snack Bar Coca Cola serves a legendary sandwich that squeezes scabbard fish marinated with onion and vinegar into a bolo do caco -- a typical Madeiran flat loaf.

Best washed down with a frosty glass of island-brewed Coral beer.

I'll let you know how they tasted. We'll be flying from Porto to Madeira on Friday, spending the night, then going back on Saturday. It will be an introduction, nothing more; there'll always be a next time, right?

Focus on Portugal: Porto's quintessential Francesinha sandwich.

Memo to Joe Phillips.

Top 5 Francesinhas in Porto (Taste Porto)

Francesinha means little French woman or simply frenchie in Portuguese. You may ask why the most iconic sandwich in our city is named after another country and we would have to say, good question. Though, I admit, it isn’t something we think about too much. Nevertheless, here is your history lesson: this dish was created by Portuguese emigrants to France, they encountered the french snack, the croque monsieur, and decided to take it to a whole new level, making it bigger, better and generally more delicious!

Usually, a francesinha is made with bread (the thicker the better), wet-cured ham, linguiça (a portuguese sausage), steak or roast beef, everything covered with melted cheese and a special tomato and beer sauce. Most times it’s served with a fried egg on top and french fries that you can dip in the sauce. Some places like to innovate by adding an extra ingredient, but what really makes the difference in the francesinha universe is the sauce. That said, in order to find your perfect match, patience and persistence, along with a pair of sweatpants is needed to undertake this food challenge.

What about the sauce? This recipe is all-inclusive.

Fear not; I'll let you know how it was.

Focus on Portugal: Vila Nova de Gaia, the Douro and other tasty aspects of Port wine.

Vila Nova de Gaia (photo credit).

Port’s longstanding popularity as an after-dinner drink can be credited to its fortification: About halfway through the fermentation process, a dose of a neutral grape spirit known as aguardiente is added to the wine, both fortifying it and halting the fermentation before all the sugar has been converted to alcohol. The resulting wine is both stronger and sweeter than traditional table wine, and comes in several varietals.

If memory serves, it was my Danish buddy Kim Wiesener -- intrepid and long-suffering tour guide for our 1987 fact-finding journey into the USSR and Poland -- who introduced me to the considerable glories of Port wine.

I recall the two of us drinking Port together on several occasions, from Moscow to London and various points in between, during a time when he was known to be cellaring prime vintages and periodically pulling out a bottle just to make sure all was well.

Since then I've become passably fluent with the language of Port, and we used to have regular holiday gatherings at the Public House of the Pants Down Pot Luck Port Tasting Circle, or some such, which was great fun while it lasted. This past Christmas my friends Kira and Ed resurrected the idea, but I was unable to attend and surely will make amends in 11 months.

In 2000, I visited two or three of the "lodges" at Vila Nova de Gaia, where tours can be taken and samples of the "basics" nipped.

Vila Nova de Gaia is just across the Douro River from Porto (Oporto). This is the real Port Wine town; it's where the lodges of the historic port wine producers are strung out along the "Ribeira" or water-front with their caves, aging tanks, and tasting rooms. Signs emblazoned with English names dominate the rooftops of lodges in the upper areas of the steep bank, while the home town producers' modest lodges are more often found tucked into the lower slopes.

They're all here because in 1225 King Alfonso gave Vila Nova de Gaia town status, then quickly handed it off to the aristocracy because the bishops of Oporto were charging unreasonable shipping charges on the wines. Despite the "new-sounding" name, Gaia sits on a pre-Roman hamlet. It has a longer history than you'd think when folks call it a "suburb" of Porto.

Later I traveled up the Douro River by train to the town of Pinhão, in the epicenter of vast tracts of vineyards. Pinhão historically functioned as a collection point for the wine being shipped downstream to Vila Nova de Gaia for aging and storage.

We'll see what happens this time around. Diana likes 20-year Tawny, while I'm content with Ruby on a daily basis. But if an appropriate vintage presents itself, almost anything can happen.

Port Wine: Portugal's Douro Valley, Making Port Wine & the History of Port

Port is a fortified wine from the remote vineyards in Portugal's Douro Valley. Here, in the Douro Valley, time has almost stood still. You will not find the latest wine making techniques and fancy equipment. Instead, you will find a wine industry much the way it was over a hundred years ago. Yet, in spite of it, or because of it, vintage Port is one of the world's greatest wines.

Port takes its name from the city of Porto that is situated at the mouth of the 560-mile long Rio Douro or River of Gold. Although many port-style wines are made around the world – most notably Australia, South Africa and the United States – the strict usage of the terms Port or Porto refer only to wines produced in Portugal. It is these wines that we will explore here.

Focus on Portugal: A history lesson upon arrival for a second visit to the country.

Lisbon's Cervejaria Trindade beer hall.

My last and only visit to Portugal came in 2000, 18 years and multiple lifetimes ago. Perhaps it isn't a coincidence that this first Portuguese experience conjures few coherent memories, occurring as it did during a time of peak alcohol consumption, amid the dissolution of a marriage.

In fact, it had been my original intent to travel to Portugal in the autumn of 1989, after a stay in Madrid. The overnight train with couchette from Madrid to Lisbon had been booked, and I'd checked out of my squalid lodging and stowed the backpack in a locker at the train station prior to meeting a new acquaintance for early afternoon beers.

All I remember is awakening at dusk, evidently having been drugged and robbed of minimal cash and traveler's checks (bizarrely, my passport and credit cards were untouched), as well as the key to the train station locker. There was nothing in the backpack of any value to a thief, but it was gone, and the sudden absence of my belongings, accompanied by a hangover-scale headache, put an end to the Portuguese plan.

Instead, I regrouped in Madrid. AmEx replaced the stolen traveler's checks, and a morning at the El Corte Ingles department store produced a new bag and some cheap clothing. After deep thought, it seemed to me that my carelessness was in part due to escalating fatigue after six months on the road, and I decided to change the flight home and cut short the journey short by returning to Copenhagen via Germany.

And that's why Portugal was missed in 1989.

My guess is that in purely relative terms, Americans know a bit more about Spain than Portugal, although in both instances we're probably subliminally influenced by both of their New World colonial extensions in Latin/South America and Brazil, respectively.

During the next few days, I'll be taking a look at Portugal, beginning with this brief overview of Portuguese history.

Short history of Portugal: The rise and fall of a global power (Just Landed)

Portugal’s often unknown history is highly interesting, considering it was the first global empire and that it used to be one of the biggest empires in the world.