Whatever happened to Portugal?

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/

Love Portugal, hate seeing that Chega guy’s smug face on every billboard.

Also admire the commitment to double parking on both sides of the one-way narrow street.

Ha, going in May and hoping to avoid driving, but may rent a car to go to the drought-stricken south? Would love to hear your tips/experiences.

I’ve been in Porto and the north, saving Lisbon and points south for another time. Highly recommend Coimbra, just lovely, small, but had a liveliness to it since it’s a university town. Salazar’s alma mater!

Oof, apologies for the fucking Ventura billboards, at least in Porto ppl have been quite good at vandalizing those.

Coimbra not so much "a" but THE university town, it's in its main distinguishing feature. Lots of great stuff from there tho I do hate the whole black uniform serenade shit.

Hey I went to the University of Virginia a lot of performative “tradition” there too.

50 years ago today

will head to my local portuguese cafe-bar for lunch :)

hopefully the proprietor isn't a salazar fan (i suspect he isn't)

Wish him a happy 25th and find out :)

After an initial "Oh yes, I didn't know it was the 50th" and an initial "I was a little boy in South Africa then, wasn't a big deal to us", uncorked a resounding "all it did was create all these bloody corrupt governments!" x_x

Cited Jose Socrates. I nodded and smiled. Not my area of expertise. But...hmm

Anyone running a small customer-facing business has at least a 60% chance of being a reactionary crank, regardless of nationality.

Sounds like a Chega voter all right!

Happy 50th!

I was in Porto a couple of weeks ago having a marvellous time. That is, until a full-on (and pretty terrfiying) ne0 n4z1 protest started taking place right outside our apartment window. earlier in the day we'd also spotted a totally separate anti-abortion march going through the city. no it won't do

Sad stuff. Friends back home are mobilizing against it and I feel a bit of guilt over not being there to contribute...not that things are great here either.

I do think (hope?) that the anti-abortion stuff is gonna turn more ppl off these fash wankers than anything else.

Damn. I'll be there in a few weeks (Lisbon > Madeira > Porto > ???), excited.

lisbon is great, just so great

I really loved my mere week in Northern Portugal, want to go back and see Lisbon, Evora, etc.

Where did you go in the north besides Porto?

The Douro valley, Vila Real, and Coimbra (which isn’t really that north)

Oh nice, we're definitely planning on Douro and I want to go to Coimbra too.

We only stopped in Coimbra for lunch (and unluckily it was graduation day or something and packed with berobed students & their families), but it seemed really nice. I'd recommend this place if veg/an appeals: https://veg.fangas.pt/home-en/

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.