Europe @ 2.4 km/h (46 page)

This sodden Monday morning I embark on a self-conducted tour of Braga — an eclectic tour of Old Town landmarks. But, not for the first time, it is an unexpected sight — and, sometimes, a sound — that creates the indelible memory. A legless beggar warbling
Ode to Joy
on a flute. The 90-year-old man with cratered features emerging from a pharmacy in nattily furled cravat, gripping his handmade cane — a picture that appears to have escaped into the real world out of the pages of an Edwardian photo album.

After the tour, a pleasant surprise. Maria Teresa comes to pick me up from the
pousada
and take me to the bus station, in a steadily intensifying downpour. We part like old, rather than day-old, friends. Imperious, impervious, impatient, the bus driver turns out to be possessed by speed devils. In bleak fog and blinding rain we hurtle along the arterial at 110 km/h, which may or may not be the legal limit but is well beyond the safe one.

Of all the towns on my long, long haul, none is less suited to the wheelchair traveller than Porto. Almost all the streets in Portugal’s second city are lengthy inclines. Tramcars heave, as cars chug, their way up here. My only option is to take deep breaths and keep in mind that this is not a race. I will get there when I get there — or fifteen minutes later. As if to compensate, I am spared the usual battle for a place to stay. In the centre of town I come across a luxurious old-style hotel with long carpeted corridors, elegant foyer and a dimly lit reception counter — in a word, classy. On Day 206 I am given the old iron key to Room 206. Oddly enough, what is modern here often doesn’t work as well. Management has embraced an automatic lighting system with excessive zeal. Every few minutes, plunged into darkness, I am forced to wriggle about to generate enough heat to bring the light back on. But my annoyance is offset by several factors: the marble floor, the wood-panelled bedroom and the low-season price — reduced, only slightly, to €35 (the same room costs €100 in the high season).

1379-1382 km

One of the most picturesque of many picturesque streets in Porto (Oporto to the English gentry) is Rua Mouzinho da Silveira. In a typical liquor store on this street there they all are in the window: ruby, tawny, white, Fonseca, Moscato … in a shop itself aged in oak, all the products ‘that gave this city its name’, as an advertising poster from 1920 put it.

When it comes to bottling knowledge, the Museum of Port Wine on the River Douro waterfront leaves you thirsty for more. Housed in an old port depot, it used to offer tastings but, alas, does so no more. Porto is a port built on port. In 1718 the creaking of ox carts bearing casks of the smooth scarlet drop, as well as coal supplies, from the hinterland prompted the council to order that the streets be paved — with cobblestones. The museum itself confirms Portugal’s poorer-cousin status, having been built as the Casa do Cais Nova (New Quay House) for the Saavedra family of Spanish nobles in the late 18th century. With the coming of the 19th century, port’s popularity created a homegrown aristocracy, the vintners of the Upper Douro, men with country estates who reinvested their profits in city properties as well — neo-Palladian edifices that were christened ‘port wine architecture’. Like the feta of Greece and the champagne of France, Vinho de Porto was appropriated by these producers who, in modern parlance, went all out to ‘protect their brand’. Coopers, caulkers, rope-makers, boatmen — the last of these so conscious of their importance they took to calling themselves ‘mariners’ — all floated on the rising port tide.

Perhaps the museum’s most entrancing exhibit is its copy of a painstakingly intricate map of the Douro. Giving our longitude as 8º 53' W, it was hand-drawn by a Scot, John James Forrester, who was ennobled as Baron de Forrester by King Dom Fernando in 1855 for just such detailed cartography after a dozen years spent plying the river. Mindful of the Vikings’ southward thrust, I find thought-provoking a digital image of the
rabelo
, a specialised vessel adapted to perilous Douro conditions and of a type that, ‘while not unknown in the Mediterranean, is more common among Nordic peoples’.

Just before 7 pm — a trifle late for afternoon tea — I made my entrance at the Cafe Majestic, Porto’s own coffee palace. Trying to steer my way between two rows of tables without disturbing any of the patrons, I managed to stop a dozen conversations at once when the rim of my right wheel caught the edge of a tablecloth and brought three wine glasses — fortunately empty — and an assortment of small china plates crashing to the floor. The waiters were forgiving. My bill came to €1.80, the surprisingly modest cost of an
americano
. I would not have been surprised at ten times the charge — with a separate bill for smashed crockery.

Across Iberia at this season the weather is the news. On TV this evening I see that the heavy rains which were lashing western Portugal have intensified as they moved east into Spain. My next stop, Salamanca, has suffered flooding, and a tornado has struck Seville. The rain in Spain may fall mainly on the plain, but it comes from the Portuguese hills.

So what do the Portuguese think of their neighbours? They are shallow and frivolous (‘not serious’), says Alfredo, a bar owner here in Porto. ‘You cannot trust them. They make a promise and forget it.’ Even worse, he adds, they are obsessed by money (a common enough complaint of ‘poorer cousins’ about their more affluent relatives). Responding to the same question, an anonymous man at the bar shrugs his shoulders and tells me, with the world-weariest of looks etched on his face, ‘They are our brothers. It is good we keep a little distance between us. Do you know what I mean?’

1383-1387 km

Any storm in Oporto makes this city an ideal micro-climate lab. The highs and lows of the topography tend to make all weather local. In the ten minutes between our departure from the depot to the outskirts of town, bound for Spain, our bus is drenched at first by showers, and then in sunshine.

If Portugal and Spain are ever looking for a common symbol, a sight you’re likely to come across anywhere on the shared peninsula, they could do worse than opt for legs of cured ham hung on hooks from shop ceilings. (I am reminded of this by several examples of the phenomenon in Salamanca.)