Whatever happened to Portugal?

anyone ever been here - article makes me want to go
http://travel.nytimes.com/2007/06/24/travel/24next.html

Anyone know the origin of Portugal's name? Is it 'Port du/de Gall'? or something similar?

"Portugal's name derives from the Roman name Portus Cale..."

It comes from this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portus_Cale

Portugal's name derives from the Roman name Portus Cale, as well as the city of Porto. Portucale evolved into Portugale during the 7th and 8th centuries, and by the 9th century, that term was used extensively to refer to the region between the rivers Douro and Minho, the Minho flowing along what would become the northern border between Portugal and Spain.

There are a lot of Portugese in London, I hear it spoken all the time on the bus - could be Brazilians of course. Come the World Cups + Euros the Portugese flag is one of the ones you see most often.

Ah right so Port of Cale.

"Some historians have argued that Greeks were the first to settle Cale and that the name derives from the Greek word kallis, 'beautiful', referring to the beauty of the Douro valley."

I like this but i suspect it's bollocks.

LISBON, July 2 (Reuters) - Portuguese Economy Minister Manuel Pinho resigned after making an offensive gesture at an opposition MP during the state of the nation debate in parliament on Thursday.

Pinho placed his two index fingers above his head, a sign representing two horns which in Portugal means calling someone a cuckold, while looking at the leader of the communist parliamentary group, Bernandino Soares.

Soares said he had made a remark about Pinho's handling of the troubled Aljustrel mine in southern Portugal, but added the comment did not merit such a reaction.

Prime Minister Jose Socrates said: "Nothing justifies this gesture and it's not admissable. This should not have happened. The minister is conscious of how this affects the image of the government. So during the debate he communicated his desire to resign and I accepted it."

I trust Portugal 'cause that Panda Bear dude lives there.

Even better than Lisbon: Cintra, particularly the Regaleira (a Brazilian sugar baron's palace whose interior is crammed with architectural references to Freemasonry and whose exterior has gardens and secret caves- seriously- designed by Wagner's set designer). Also it has the ruins of the palace that William Beckford lived in. Cintra was Byron's favorite spot on the continent too, apparently.

In short, Portugal is aweseome. It's cheap compared to the rest of Europe, and the food is great. Recommended.

― Drew Daniel, Wednesday, February 28, 2007 9:54 AM (2 years ago) Bookmark

This is all OTM, but it's spelled Sintra. And it's under an hour's train ride from Lisbon. Highly recommended. Heard that a film version of Alice in Wonderland was filmed here (IMDB says it's not the upcoming Tim Burton one) and I could totally see it - towers, unlit caves and tunnels, prehistoric-looking flora.

A half hour in the other direction from Lisbon takes you to Cascais, a totally different world - chilled out beach town. But I really loved Lisbon and Porto both. I didn't get so much of an abandoned vibe from Lisbon-could be seasonal- more so with Porto.

Best Porto story: My friend and I wandered out after dinner one night to try and find some nightlife, but the only thing we came across were drab cafeteria-looking bars filled with just men watching football. Kept walking till we got toward the river and decided to stop into one decent-looking bar and get a beer, maybe ask around to find out what else was cracking. We're sitting at the bar and I see a guy at another table rolling a spliff. Then I glance at another table - same thing. This girl walks up and pays the bartender, doesn't get a drink, but he puts something into her hand. My friend and I are thinking WTF is going on here? So I ask the bartender, Do you know where I could get some hashish? He looks left and right, then replies, How much you want? He returns a few minutes later with two long bars of hash for 20 Euros. We go outside and a couple of totally straight-looking, 50-year-old Portuguese guys are rolling spliff after spliff, they have a whole cigarette pack loaded with bars of hash, and everyone is basically smoking openly. They're friendly as hell, share their stuff and chat in English and Spanish and just get high as shit. None of this is official or legal AFAIK, just a happy coincidence we stumbled upon.

Weird coincidnece: I just finally busted through the 4 Euro pair of Portuguese flag-emblazoned (weird hyphenating there?)flip flops that I bought 15 months ago in Cascais.

NB: I ain't one them cats that be wearing flip flops on the regular.

Years ago I spent a summer in Carcavelos just outside of Lisbon. Terrific place - very inexpensive, tremendous food, Seconding Drew's "neutron bomb" depopulated feeling.

Also, Livraria Lello in Porto is the most amazing looking bookstore in the world.

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/51/150009587_838680fbd8.jpg

UH. I think I could lose myself in there.

None of this is official or legal AFAIK

There was a piece on BBC News the other day about Portugal decriminalising all drugs a couple of years ago, and how this hasn't led to Lisbon getting an Amsterdam-type reputation, instead consumption has actually fallen and how no-one can really explain why. The piece ran with footage of a girl openly smoking heroin in some abandoned scrubland, which made the whole thing seem very unattractive.

lol wait, what? That's not true! It's legal to own small amounts of hash/weed for consumption, but it's illegal to smoke in public, and certainly illegal to sell! So technically what this boils down to is if the police searches your house and finds some hash they can't arrest you for that. Which is hardly Amsterdam-level appealing. I was under the impression that harder drugs are still 100% illegal, but might have to check up on that.

But yeah, it's pretty normal for people to be smoking up more or less in public over here, especially at the Ribeira district (which is where Whitey went, I'm guessing.) Most pubs and clubs will let you do that if you're reasonably discreet about it. The thing is if you get caught basically all you have to do is hand the stuff over to the police, there's no jail terms or fines, so it's a controlled risk. Still not a nice experience when it happens, though.

I realise that this is after-the-fact, but if anyone's planning to visit Porto next year I reccomend going in May and checking out when Serralves (the local modern art museum) is doing their "Serralves Em Festa" weekend. Basically they open the place to the public for 40 straight hours - and the thing is, the museum is sorrounded by these absolutley huge and gorgeous gardens. So you get to lounge about in these beautiful spots o forest, grass, etc. and catch random performance art, dance, music, etc. They also more high profile concerts at one place, this year we had Dan Deacon, A Certain Ratio, Gravy Train and Metro Area DJs. It's like a really friendly, laid back festival, basically. Oh, and you get to visit the museum, free of charge. I reccomend going on Saturday at like three in the morning, when the place is just full of people who are drunk/high/wasted as shit. It's an experience.

Also, Livraria Lello in Porto is the most amazing looking bookstore in the world.

Gorgeous, but not actually a good bookstore. They know that they're on every tour guide's plan and coast on that, very unfriendly service and the selection's for shit. A friend of mine enjoys browsing their technology section, though, because it's full of early 90's "omg virtual reality!" type books.

Just want to say something kind about the Gulbenkian in Lisbon.

Simão, alongside Lampard, is also on the cover of the Portuguese edition of FIFA 10's cover (it is the 18th title in Electronic Arts' FIFA series of football video games, available for the PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360 and Wii). He said: "It's an honor to be part of the EA Sports FIFA. Being on the cover of this fantastic video game with such a rich history it's truly a great achievement for me".[26]

Happy 25th of April everyone!

http://i.imgur.com/eApG736.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBrp6b2th4Q

Folk, marching band music, Funk, Chanson, Rock and a cover of "Maiden Voyage" - pretty much all you could ask for from a Portuguese protest singer record.

✌️

Portuguese government has decreed that ALL asylum seekers and ALL undocumented migrants with pending applications for residence are AUTOMATICALLY granted and may access ALL STATE PROVISION including healthcare and benefits. I'm going to faint. https://t.co/EU4bP75eis

— Zoe Gardner (@ZoeJardiniere) March 28, 2020

All current residence and asylum requests automatically granted so immigrants can access health services!

dope

Just about every single Portuguese film I've seen in recent years has a very explicit pro-immigration stance. Very heartening to see culture bleed into policy

<3 <3 <3 <3

Haha, imago, don't think the niche that is Portuguese cinema had anything to do with this, audiences for that (like myself) tend to be leftist and pro-immigrant by default. The fact that Portugal's current PM is the son of immigrants perhaps more so, but also right now it's a total win-win measure - ppl who might have the virus not getting access to healthcare helps the virus spreading in general, even most racists understand that.

We are (were?) currently in the middle of a culture war regarding racism nonetheless, coinciding with a huge influx of ppl coming in from Brazil due to the terrible situation there.

to add to what Daniel_Rf said on the Latin thread about young Portuguese speaking English, the government has now put UK passport holders into the fast track queue

I know UK's oldest ally and everything but the scale of the Anglophilia is quite something

you whippersnappers need to remember Eusebio and all that etc etc

will add that said Anglophilia was very much in evidence when I visited last in 2019. either that or I'm an uncommonly charismatic kinda guy

lol sorry to disappoint but it's not anglophilia it's wanting $$$$ from tourists, the national economy now being entirely reliant on this

Portuguese kids speaking English is entirely to do with the yanks.

b...but we fwends?

Most of their footballers play for Wolves these days.

My Airbnb host in Faro had taken to supporting Wolves! He was watching them on telly when I arrived

'entirely to do with the Yanks' is EPL erasure surely

Oh Faro isn't Portugal, the Algarve is a UK territory obv.

lol, where does Porto fit on that metric (a mooted destination)

Porto is Portugal but also, as locals will tell you, a nation of its own.

To be clear my joke about the Algarve is only half-joking: there's a huge amount of British retirees living there, pretty much self-segregated from the locals (much like some regions in Spain) and its industry is even more directed towards tourism than the rest of the country, it's just not representative at all. The only other place I'd say this about would be Madeira.

When I went, I avoided the Maddy McCann Zone to the west of Faro, staying in Faro itself and venturing eastward to Olhau and Tavira by train, and it definitely didn't feel like expat country; hardly any UK retirees (maybe they were there in various Brexit complexes I didn't stumble across). Loads of good birdwatching tho!

https://www.portugalresident.com/algarve-drought-nears-catastrophic-level/

My wife is vegetarian, thanks!

I have Lisbon vegetarian recommendations too...just give me a sec

I'm having trouble figuring out the names of some places we went, but I can say:

Ao 26 was the best strictly vegan place I went to, and what's cool about it is they do vegan versions of some of the trad Portuguese stuff you otherwise can't eat (e.g., francesinha).

Senhor Uva is good too (both of these are on the fancy side though), though it's tapas & wine and we were all still a little hungry at the end of the meal -- in contrast, Ao 26 was very filling.

But mostly I'd just say that it's easier to be vegetarian, even vegan, there than people who haven't been recently will tell you. Even down in Faro I got by okay

Excellent, tysm!

my pleasure! we were there last May, which is a great time to visit

rob, I went to Fangas Veg too! It's great, and the people are really nice!

that's true, they were nice! there were also beautiful lace scarves hung up all over town the day we were there

I went to Portugal in 2005, a friend was involved in a garage rock festival in a place called Barreiro, I stayed in Lisbon and took the ferry across there each day. On the last day we had dinner with one of the bands playing, which meant I ate fish pie with Billy Childish, not a lifelong dream, but still very cool times. After the bands had all played I hung out with them until the sun was coming up, then made my way back to the ferry, there was literally one every 15 minutes but for some reason I decided to drunkenly run to catch the one that was leaving, tripped over a bit of pavement and landed straight on my face. Somebody helped me up and I said "am I ok?" and they looked at me grimly and shook their head. The ferry people called an ambulance and half an hour later they had taken the stones out of my face and sewn me up, I still have a scar on my chin but thankfully that's all - though for the next two weeks a few people asked me if I'd been in a motorbike accident and I had to say "no I just fell on my face." Anyway it's still a good memory overall and I think about it any time I see the (not disfiguring) scar in the mirror.

Just found out Nuno Espírito Santo is from Barreiro, nice!

xp That sounds like something I would've done in 2005

https://keithfullertonwhitman.bandcamp.com/album/lisbon

people have had more lethal encounters with billy the kid tbf

Fwiw it's my dream to emigrate to Portugal one day for some reason. I have been three times since 2018, falling in love with the country on my first visit. Can't wait to go back again

huh.. I've been to Spain but never Portugal, maybe I should go check it out

but I drink more sherry than port

Enjoyed this piece, and I don't read Jacobin that often.

https://jacobin.com/2024/04/portugal-revolution-military-coup-anticolonialism

There's a bust of Willy Brandt in Porto, somewhere near Serralves, whose presence is explained by the SPD intervention that article mentions.