Travelites

If you are one of those readers who pines for recent days when you could pick up a book while sipping a double, soy, decaf caramel latte in an Ikea chair at one of those ubiquitous franchise bookstores, well, you won't want to read any further. Unlike Northern Europe and North America, the franchise bookstore bubble never came to Portugal. We don't have empty big-box stores or vacant mall galleries where trendy, plastic wood shelves once offered a formulated list of bestsellers and coffee. Thankfully, this is one franchise movement that passed by Portugal's recent gentrification. As a self-admitted bookworm, perusing family-owned bookstores filled with dusty old leather volumes, tattered stacks of printed ephemera, postcards, comic books, and antique engraved prints is a favorite activity that I usually reserve for those rare rainy winter days in Lisbon. I can easily let a few hours slip by that should have been spent responding to important phone calls and emails, and...

Mercado da Ribeira and TimeOut Magazine Score a Hit in Lisbon The largest central farmers market in Lisbon, Mercado da Ribeira has been the city's main market since it opened in 1892 with a grand oriental dome. Inside is a massive pavilion where you can watch fresh seafood from the Azores Islands to Norway being snatched up by locals and restauranteurs haggling for the best price. Although the financial crisis and wholesale, discount chain stores had reduced this once thriving market to a handful of diehard vendors, in 2014 it's management was taken over by TimeOut Lisboa magazine, with a bold a project that was finally realized last week and opened to the public with much anticipation. The Mercado da Ribeira now hosts a lively food pavilion with over 30 top chefs, Lisbon eateries and famous shops, some of which have supplied Lisboetas with savory foodstuffs for over a century. Inside is a beautifully designed 500 seat dining area that gets bustling around 9:00pm, but not...

On December 5, 1872, the Mary Celeste, a Canadian-built, American-owned merchant ship, was speeding across the Atlantic from the Azores Islands towards Gibraltar with sails at full mast. However, when it was sighted 1,000 km off the coast of Portugal by the crew of the Dei Gratia, a Canadian brigantine, they discovered that the Mary Celeste was abandoned, completely unmanned. Although the weather was fine and there was no damage to the ship, nor any distress flags, when Oliver Deveau, Chief Mate of the Dei Gratia, boarded the Mary Celeste. On board, he discovered something even more bizarre. All of the ship's papers were missing, except for the captain's logbook. The ship's clock was not functioning, and the compass was destroyed; the sextant and marine chronometer were missing. A six-month supply of uncontaminated food and fresh water remained aboard, and the crew's personal possessions and artifacts were left untouched, making a pirate raid seem extremely unli...

Most well-heeled travelers headed to Lisbon will have heard about our brand of local folk music called Fado, meaning "Fate". Formally recognized in the 19th century and UNESCO-protected as “Intangible Heritage” today, the music is filled with melancholy and deep emotional longing, and evokes the multicultural influences that have shaped contemporary Portuguese culture over the centuries. Its roots are in the islands of West Africa, carrying melodies influenced by Arabo-Hispanic troubadours with a residue of Ladino influences from Sephardic communities. In recent decades, scores of music lovers have been seduced by Fadistas like Amália Rodrigues, known as the "Rainha do Fado" (Queen of Fado), who cemented her position in the international World Music circuits until her passing in 1999. Today, performers like Mariza are packing theaters around the world, seduced by her reinvented Fado, while Cristina Branco and Ana Moura represent a new generation of talented Fado i...