Europe @ 2.4 km/h (53 page)

1551-1554 km

In high summer this pretty stretch of coast would be crowded with holidaymakers, a second Costa del Sol. In low winter it is quiet, almost deserted. Perfect. The middle of Faro’s main pedestrian mall is covered in a Santa-red carpet. On Sunday morning a plastic Father Christmas — just last night a puffed-up jolly giant 20 metres tall — lies crumpled and deflated on the grass; I know the feeling only too well.

Faro is a 20-minute bus ride from the Atlantic coast. At this time of year the air temperature at Faro Beach — Praya de Faro — is perhaps 11 ºC, not bitterly cold but nobody is braving the water. Along the coast, a ribbon of sand glints under the odd shaft of sunlight, but for a more scenic view you must look 100 metres inland, at a broad lagoon called the Rio Formosa. There, runabouts lie at anchor, faithful sea dogs abandoned. For these vessels, unlike their masters, there’ll be no more running about this year.

1557-1559 km

Faro railway station ticket hall, 7 am. My ticket is for the 7.38 — a most inaccessible beast — to the interior. Unless someone makes a move soon, I will miss the train. Meanwhile I keep one eye on a brand-new wheelchair ramp that only wants to be unfolded to be ready for use. The stationmaster is here now, gesturing that he intends to ignore its existence and lift me bodily into the train. It’s his station; I don’t argue. But this would never happen in Germany. One Europe? Not yet, not soon.

Évora is a trial on wheels. World Heritage status is a mixed blessing for the residents of this small, yet historic, walled town in central Portugal. But for me it guarantees an ordeal with every revolution of my wheels — two hours from railway station to upper town across jagged rocks to roll 3 km. Typically friendly Portuguese who warned me I would never see Évora because of its rough surface are owed an apology. Then I thought, I’ll prove them wrong. Now I think, How right they were, as I make the slowest ‘progress’ of the journey
.

At the medieval mansion — a
pensão
of great character accessible only with the staff’s kind help — Sophia is sympathetic. ‘Nothing can be touched. This is because our town is all patrimonial,’ she says, flinging the Unesco term as an epithet. It is one thing to keep your streets in a pristine 15th-century state (rough) — and damn the inconvenience to motorists, the elderly, mothers with prams and, oh yes, wheelchair users — but why then, I ask myself, looking around me, are residents allowed to install ungainly Meccano-like television antennas on their red-tiled roofs? Once we start going down this rocky path — and at under 1 km/h in Évora I know plenty about rocky paths — intellectual monsters lurk, ready to waylay you.

1559-1564 km

David, the owner of my
pensão
— the Portuguese equivalent of a
pensión
— is so town-proud that aware of his guest’s difficulties in getting out to see the neighbourhood he puts aside other, more pressing, business to ensure I don’t miss out on its premier attractions. The building ensemble on the hill overlooking the
pensão
makes those few hundred square metres probably the most historic location in all Portugal — not excluding Lisbon. Whether the edifice they call the Temple of Diana was actually dedicated to the goddess of the hunt is dubious but what is not in dispute is its status as Iberia’s best preserved Roman temple. If that sounds like faint praise — it is roofless, after all — we do well to be thankful it is still upright after two millennia.

Nearby is the town’s distinctive marble cathedral, simply called the Sé. It showcases an amalgam of architectural styles rarely seen in a single building: Romanesque towers, fortress-style parapets, Gothic entrance and a Baroque apse. David mentions, quite casually, that the Inquisition had its own interrogation chambers here in the church, which celebrated its 700th anniversary in 2008.

Not far across town, outside St Francis’ Church — not as old as the Sé but once attached to the royal palace and so endowed with great prestige — there is just enough time to ask David about the antennas before he must head off on other business. I quiz him, ‘How did they get past the patrimonial police?’ and he informs me of a recent proposal brought before the town council to replace them with one ‘super-antenna’ for the entire area. ‘But,’ he laments, ‘it was an idea too logical, so it failed.’ Perhaps, I suggest, those precious antennas should be declared World Heritage aerials, and added to Evora’s list of priceless relics, never to be altered. Deeming this an excellent idea, David notes it down for future reaction.

In a dusty unvisited recess along one side of the building, a destitute crone clutching a single crust of bread feebly attempts to feed a coterie of cats that have adopted her. Exactly midway between the riches and the poverty lies the great equaliser we know as Capela dos Ossos, the Chapel of Bones. Constructed entirely of human skeleton parts, it is inevitably dismissed by many as grotesque. As David explained to me, the 16th-century Franciscans meditated much about their church’s location over a graveyard — and this was their response. On a marble lintel under which everyone must pass is the most thought-provoking inscription. WE BONES THAT ARE HERE, WE ARE WAITING FOR YOURS. Skulls are inset among geometric arrays of tibias. One complete skeleton dangles from a wall. A sign in Portuguese hangs above the altar. What wisdom is there? I ask a tour guide, who translates it for my benefit. ‘Why are you going so fast? Stop and think. Life is so short.’ Going so fast at 2.4 km/h, and more than twice as slow in Évora? This is a clear-cut case of mistaken identity
.

Swiftly, the view from the train alters from a field and forest landscape to a picture window filled by the broad, broad Tagus. Lisbon announces itself more impressively than Paris, more imperiously than Madrid. Will it live up to the expectations this creates in the first-time visitor? We shall see. The train service terminates at ultramodern Gare do Oriente, opposite the equally ultramodern Vasco da Gama shopping mall. From world-beating global explorer to shopping mart in just five centuries.
Sic transit gloria mundi.

1567-1570 km

To understand the essence of Portugal, I’ve been assured, you must embrace
fado
, the beautiful music of Fate. Portugal’s contribution to world music may not have travelled well outside lusophone (Portuguese-speaking) societies, but
fado
explains so much more than I could hope to know from any other source that I cannot wait to share the passion. With its roots in the working-class Lisbon districts of Alfama, Mouraria, Bairro Alta and Madragon,
fado -
which emerged in the second quarter of the 19th century — is described in the Casa do Fado museum as ‘a music of daily life, of joy, sadness, love, jealousy, homesickness, faith’.

Like opera before it and jazz in the decades to come,
fado
soared — around 1870 — from its humble origins into the most fashionable of settings. Portuguese aristocrats took their lead from King Dom Carlos (1863-1908), who was taught guitar by
fado
composer and performer João Maria dos Anjos. The fateful music’s golden age dawned in the 1930s, spurred on by radio, gramophone records and official censure under Fascist dictator Salazar. His order banning
cegadas
, plays full of
fado
songs dealing with comic, cultural and even political themes, prompted singers to create two sets of lyrics to the same melodies — one for public exhibition, the other
proibida
. Ricardo Rocha, the Casa’s tour guide, says a friend of his, Ricardo Almeida, is playing tonight in Alfama. Then he adds, with as much impartiality as he can muster, ‘This guy is probably the best guitar player in the world.’

Alfama is in the upper town. How to get there, when it’s too close for a taxi ride, too steep to push? I’m mulling this over when a minibus stops in front of me, and I surprise us all by leaving my wheelchair at the kerb and crawling down the bus aisle. Luckily, the driver recovers enough presence of mind to bring the chair aboard before straining up the hill.

Having forgotten where Ricardo is performing, I settle for a restaurant where someone has mentioned that a ‘late show’ will be starting at half past ten. The singer, Ana Sofia Varela, arrives with a camera-toting friend who turns out to be none other than the wife of Ricardo, ‘the best guitar player in the world’.

How many
fado
acts are in this city? There must be dozens, I’m thinking, and, turning to tonight’s guitarist, Pedro de Castro, exclaim, ‘What a coincidence!’ My naivety incurs a summary rebuke. ‘There are no coincidences.’ Such is the decree of
fado
.

Ana Varela’s voices are remarkably diverse. The music that flows from her ranges from the sweetest fluting utterances to a sound as sharp as a knife in the ribs — but vastly more satisfying.

1575-1577 km

On Friday evening in a downtown plaza by the Tagus, the last thing I expect to hear is an orchestra tuning up. But this afternoon the European Reform Treaty — better known as the Treaty of Lisbon — was signed, advancing closer European integration, not long ago a seemingly doomed cause after the Dutch and French between them scuttled a proposed Constitution. (Irish ratification in late 2009, at the second time of asking, will refloat the treaty after all.) This evening the city is invited to party. The EU leaders who are in town have also been invited but, although they are dining just 500 metres from here, no one seems to know if they will.

Under a canopy on the concourse in front of the European Presidency offices I meet Nicholas McNair, an Englishman resident in Portugal and a classical composer by profession. But his particular skill in demand tonight is his expertise in timing. As the 70-piece Orchestra do Algarve goes through its program, his job will be to press a button a split second before each big musical bang, to ensure it is synchronised with the fireworks.

Before he goes back to the rehearsal I ask Nicholas whether he considers himself more British or European, and he says, ‘Definitely European. I couldn’t feel so European in England — ‘ he pauses, then adds, ‘I’m joking, of course.’ But anyone who has lived in England will know there’s more than an iota of truth behind such a slip of the tongue. Naturally I stay for the concert, announced by the theme to
2001: A Space Odyssey
. Bom-boom, bom-boom, bom-boom, bom-boom, bom — starburst! Nicholas has come in right on cue. Then the strains of
Ode to Joy
fill the air — and eyes with tears.