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Portugal Diary: Praising Porto
Porto, 14 June
"Dust, stinks, horrid faces, contents of chamberpots, fleas, bad water, no good wine. Such are the delights of Portugal." So wrote Britain's Lady Craven when she visited this country in 1791. Luckily for UEFA EURO 2004 fans visiting Portugal this month, things have changed somewhat since then. The water is clean, the wine excellent, the faces anything but horrid, and not a chamberpot in sight.
Pragmatic Portuguese
The Portuguese are gracious and welcoming hosts - polite, friendly, courteous, and keen to help foreigners understand their culture and way of life. They are also a pragmatic people. They have not been swept up in an emotional frenzy of nationalism just because the tournament is being held in their country. They expect results from their team, not because they are playing at home, but because the players are paid such high salaries that the supporters expect them to earn their living by winning. Every Portuguese fan I have spoken to mentions the players' salaries. When they lost their opening game to Greece, the fans were annoyed - not disappointed.
Saudade
For a country with such a pleasant climate, I was surprised to learn that the Portuguese have an intensively introspective side that is usually associated with the Nordic countries. The condition is known as saudade, for which there is no English translation. The London Independent recently described it as "a tendency to dwell on ancient triumphs and be plagued by the feeling that things will never be so good again - a syndrome most English football supporters should recognise".
Isolation
But it is more than this. A Portuguese anthropologist whom I met in a bar during the England-France game told me that the roots of saudade are not so much in a longing for the past, but in the fact that Portugal was a nation of fishermen before joining the European Union in 1985. It is the association with the loneliness of life on the seas that shaped the national character. Portugal is the only country whose coastline touches the Mediterranean and the Atlantic.
Blazon?
A brochure in the Grande Hotel do Porto, where I am staying, describes Portugal's northern capital as "the city of plural, divergent, complementary meanings. Door of entrance and vital centre of the north, head of the territory of where Portugal was born and had name, this is the proud city of itself, loyal and indomitable - according to proper blazon."
Beer and port
Blazon or no blazon, Porto is a magnificent venue for an international football tournament. It is the base for fans attending matches in the city's two stadiums, as well as in Guimar�es and Braga. They are enjoying hot days and cool evenings, ancient architecture, Super Bock beer and cheap port wine. They are taking advantage of the city's brand new metro system to get to the stadiums, and enjoying excellent food.
Food fare
Although Porto is famous for its tripe, (its citizens are affectionately known in the rest of the country as tripeiros - tripe eaters), it is also easy to find hot sandwiches and the national dish - bacalhau, a type of salted cod, which comes in almost 400 varieties.
Byron's pleasure
But EURO 2004 fans are not the first foreigners to enjoy their time in Portugal. The great Romantic poet Lord Byron visited the country in July 1809 and wrote: "I am very happy here, because I loves oranges, and talks bad Latin to the Monks, who understand it as it is like their own. And I goes into society (with my pocket pistols) and I swims in the Tagus all across at once, and I rides on an ass or a mule and swears Portuguese, and I have got a diarrhoea, and bites from the mosquitoes. But what of that? Comfort must not be expected by folks that go a-pleasuring."
-- Opera - Simply the Best Internet Experience: http://www.opera.com
