Bertrand's Bookstore in Lisbon

It's Monday the 25th in Lisbon.

Eight o'clock of a Spring evening, we have our french doors open to the 18-inch wide balcony, and the white-noise sound of people eating dinner in street-front cafes four floors below is us just "there." Somehow it comforts, being surrounded by all these people who are living calm lives.

Yes; there are flocks of tourists gaggling all over town . . . think Hitchcock's "Birds." There are more Portuguese here than that; it's their town after all. Tourism is a serious industry here, from blue-and-white tiles (saw a factory "since 1852) and sheet-cork postcards to designer clothing and real estate conglomerates buying and building hotels and summer vacation places. 

Taxis here seem to be predominantly diesel powered. Mini-taxis are electric. And there are a million people on foot with every bit as many in tour buses and cable-cars. The streets are -not- wide, y'all. Think two-and-a-half compact cars building to building. You have to fit the sidewalks in that space. And there are serious iron stanchions to make sure the cars stay on the asphalt. And one side of the street is for parking. And the trolly/cable-car tracks share the streets with the automobiles.

Started the day with a four-hour lead to get Kathryn to her Portuguese language class. It's half an hour away. There's a lot to see yet, so . . . 

I looked up "english language bookstore" in Lisbon. One of the first to come us was Bertrand's, the oldest continuously operating bookstore in the world. Uh, yes; that is a must-see. Fortuitously, it was on our way, so off we went. Remember how your parents always walked uphill both ways to school? Lisbon is like that, friends; you -can- walk downhill for a ways, but the topography can, and will, change on a cobblestone.

We found Bertrand's. It's a Viking word-hoard. It goes and goes and goes, and at the end is a bar for coffee and pastries and snacks. They -do- have an English language section, but it -is- a Portuguese bookstore. 

In the small praça up the hill from Bertrand's, I took a small photo-op with a bronze of Fernando Pessoa, then we went inside a small restaurant and took breakfast : "Portuguese bagel" for me . . . (salmon and cream cheese on a roll) and tomato and mozzarella on a poppy seed bun for Kathryn 

Out the door, up the hill to the praça (I FIGURED OUT THE CEDILLA!), and turn left down the hill. Glanced in an open door as we passed and saw pegs of firemen's uniforms hanging there. Backed up and read over the door "Fire Station," but in Portuguese. Didn't see how they got their trucks inside till I turned my head back around front. They don't. All their vehicles were parked around a little park. Something like half a score or more. It was a revelation. 

I had to see what the bronze sculpture on the other side of the park was , so we ambled around and found it to be dedicated to Eca de Queiróz, the greatest Portuguese writer in the realist style. (I got that from wikipedia.) While were there this looked-like-forty-pound dog charged to the iron railing fence barking furiously. His owner finally got him back under control; had he crossed that fence he would have had my ballpoint pen right through the middle of his chest. That is the first time I have seen a dog out of control since we've been here.

We continued downhill toward the bay and discovered we were in the used book district. Oh, Lord in Heaven, the treasures agleam in the different fronts . . . a navigation map of I-forget-which river (like the ones I'd used on the Mississippi when I was a kid), yellowed volumes of botanical drawings, plastic-sheathed pages of shaped-note musical scores, histories of the nations in a dozen idioms, and linear meters of Portuguese history in that tongue. I felt humbled and blessed in the same heartbeat, and I thanked each shop owner as we exited.

A small (I've only seen two large) grocery store we stopped in carried toasted rusks. So we got a packet of those and a refrigerated package of cheese.

By now it was time to deliver Kathryn to here Portuguese language class (2PM-6PM).

Across the street to the bus rank, and I asked the first driver which one to catch to get to Santa Apolónia, where we'll catch the trail Friday for Coimbra. First stop across the circle, thirty-five minutes. Strolled deeper into the park. Three and a half euros bought me a (glass) bowl of yoghurt topped and bottomed with granola and ringed with sliced strawberries. Delivered to the table. In the sun. Beside the Tagus River. In Portugal. In the Spring.

Friends, I don't know how it gets better.

Found the train station; caught the Blue Line back to the apartment. Accidentally got off a stop early. I'm going back tomorrow to video that. It's like "Journey to the Center of the Earth" in reverse. I'm serious; the train station is at sea level, the metro is below that, and the center-of-town stop is atop a hill. It's six or eight escalator lifts. You'll see tomorrow.

Anyhow, I went back to walk Kathryn home, and we stopped enroute to pick up a notebook for her class notes . . . it's best of the notebook has the proper accent, right? Then we stopped on a flight of steps to finish her breakfast roll (woman doesn't eat much).

And now we're home.

Life is good in our 8-1/2 by 11-1/2 foot room ... that's a little less than 8-1/2 square meters. Add the bathroom (we've talked about that.) The hallway past the bath is twenty-eight inches wide. The hallway to the other rooms in the place is twenty-nine inches wide.

You don't need much when

Life is good.

042419  pictures to follow