A Grande Tour: The Beginning

This door represents the beginning of a voyage- the portal between two worlds, the boundary between before and after. It is also, of course, just a door- a random door in Lisbon, a city historically renowned for its tiles. 

Lisbon was the city where my friend and I began our Grand Tour. I'd always liked the concept of a Grand Tour, something traditionally undertaken by wealthy youth of means with the proclaimed goal of returning a better, more cultured person, linguistically matured and artistically ripened. This all sounded just fine to me, and so, we bought train passes and packed our bags for a three week trip all over the Continent. Planning and foresight is not our strong point, but spontaneity can be a virtue of its own (we told ourselves) as we set off, with only a list of the 9 cities we knew we would visit.

There is laundry drying everywhere, like proud flags flying from every window in the city. There is graffiti most places, too, on the cracked plaster of the alleys. It was political rather than artistic, on the whole. Here is the street we stayed on, in the lovely house of a lovely travel writer of Irish-German descent who opened her spare room to us through Couchsurfing. If you haven't heard of couchsurfing, you must, because it is my hippie dream of open hearts and harmony come to life. 

Don't these look like giant white chess pawns?'

Our first stop once we'd wandered a few streets was to head to the water. The large bay is bridged by-and this was highly disconcerting-an exact replica of the Golden Gate Bridge. I would see it out of the corner of my eye and experience an intense feeling of displacement. 

The Avenue of Flags, as I shall call it (perhaps even correctly) we visited in hopes of attending a food and wine festival; but our hopes were dashed when we discovered the entrance fee. However, ever adaptable, we then explored this plaza in the warm (too-warm) sunshine, the bay ever-present only a hundred feet away. Presently, we noticed a tram floating in the blue sky over our heads, and decided to investigate. I believe I have previously mentioned my love of trams. This tram was sweltering and stuffy once inside, and there was an unidentified vibrating sound. We loved  it. 

Later, we went to a fortress on near the very top of the city, perched on the highest hill, as battlements are wont to do. If you look closely in this picture, you may notice a tiny black shape at the foot of the walls; this is a cat, one of the dozens who live in the fort walls, happy and lazy. They wander anywhere they please, and sleep on the ancient walls. 

As we climbed higher and higher and reached new towers, more and more of Lisbon opened up to us. From this tower, I could hear children's shrieking and shouts, and realized that just beyond the pink house was a school courtyard, where a fierce game of dodgeball was happening. Notice, of course, the laundry drying in the warmth. As we stood quietly from another tower, watching the entire city in the gentle breeze and heavy sun, leaning on the stone walls which scratch my arms, I knew this was one of those rare moments when travel makes sense. It is why I travel, for those moments, when the hassles of planes and trains and luggage fall away, and I wish I could live forever within that single moment. 

On the last evening in Lisbon, we went to a terrace bar and ordered, of course, Port.  There was a canopy, of sorts, made of what must have been thousands of white paper loops woven together; it fluttered and rippled in the wind with a sound like a hundred people whispering at the same time. We sat at the edge of the terrace, in low slung chairs, and watched the sun slowly stain the horizon, and talked, and looked. The port was ruby red and thick, almost viscous in its richness, and as we sipped the last of it, I felt a surge of sadness, at the inevitability of endings, but also anticipation, for what would come next.