Photos from Lisbon

Here are the photos from my time in Lisbon and Sintra, a small town north west of the city. There are too many highlights to list, so please check out the photos to get a glimpse of an incredibly beautiful country.

Two things of note:

I had an incredible pastry known as the Pasteis de Belém, which comes from a small north next to Lisbon. The cake is a variation of a Pasteis de Nata (cream cake), which is a common Portugese pastry, and has an incredibly rich and sweet taste that is perfect for a cold, wet, and weary traveler. (It rained the whole weekend while I was in Portugal).

I also had a chance to check out fado, which is a traditional Portugese song form that emerged around 1820 in Lisbon. The genre features guitars and a stringed instrument known as the Portugese Guitar accompanying a male or female vocalist. Although some have compared the genre to flamenco, the form, which reflects Brazilian, and Moorish influences, does diverge from flamenco in several ways:

• First, the singers do not use glissando notes and altered minor scales (e.g scales that sound 'middle eastern') that define flamenco singing.

• Further, the Portugese guitar, which is a 12 string instrument (double strings for six pitches), plays a central role in each song; traditional flamenco simply uses a guitar although Paco De Lucía has introduced modern instrumention into his performances.

• Thematically, Fado songs tend to reflect suadade, a sense of longing for someone or something such as a lost moment in time. Although this sentiment is similar to the notion of duende in Flamenco music, fado songs tend to revolve around life at sea or the life of the poor, reflecting its origins from sailors and individuals in docks who spent time away from their loved ones or worked long hours with little pay. In recent times, the music also commented on politics and components of modern urban life.

The end result is a unique genre music that reflects Portugal's unique presence on the Iberian Peninsula and beyond.