From shops to sights and the world’s sexiest WC, Carol Wright says the city grabs attention

Lisbon is a city of blues; sky blue azueljos tiles surfacing its walls and fado; blue mood songs and a UNESCO ‘intangible heritage of humanity’.

I began my musical history trail on the ramparts of Castelo Sao Jorge among peacocks, lime and cypress trees. Now the city’s icon, it was a royal residence for a thousand years till the devastating 1755 earthquake.

Within the ramparts, the enchanting Solar do Castelo hotel has, phoenix-like, been created in an aristocrat’s palace built in 1765 on the site of former royal kitchens. Liberally decorated with tiled panels, bedrooms are named for Portuguese kings and the Moorish-style tiled patio with its splashing fountain is my preferred place to join a friendly peacock for a chilled white port as the sun sets over the river Tagus far below.

Below the castle, the umbrella-wide alleys and mini-squares of the Moorish Alfama and Mouraria districts slither down to river level.

This is where the Lisbon blues were born. Fado means fate, a theme underlying the haunting sadness and helpless melancholy of sailors parted from loved ones.

It is an acquired sound. I love the magic of its so called ‘wine voice’: deep, throaty howls of pain issuing from black garbed women who are no conventional beauties but command attention with voice and eyes.

Fado is now mainly an after-dinner entertainment and my favourite spot is the stone arched room of O Faia in Bairro Alto.

I’ll sit entranced while Lenita Gentil and Antonio Rocha, a tiny man with a huge voice, sing accompanied by two Portuguese twelve stringed lute shaped guitars.

In the multi-ethnic Mouraria that’s recently shaken off its sleazy reputation to become a trendy shopping and eating area, the ‘Renovate Mouraria’ organisation runs fado and other guided tours, yoga lessons and tapestry work shops.

Rua do Capelao was where fado was born, where Severa, the original eighteenth century fadista and a marquis’ mistress lived in a tiny house where I stood and listened to her songs.

Rua do Capelao has become a permanent outdoor photo gallery with leading fado singers’ portraits literally printed on the stone walls by British born photographer Camilla Watson using a moveable tent-like darkroom.

To learn more about these performers and their songs, I made my way along Alfama’s river frontage to the Fado Museum where I put on headphones and dialled up singers like the great Amalia Rodrigues who put fado on the global map.

Originally a poor fruit seller, when she died in 1999, the general election campaign was suspended and the whole country mourned.

I lunched in the museum’s A Travessa do Fado restaurant eating tapas-style dishes of garlic prawns, asparagus in light batter and black pork with baby beans washed down with vinho verde.

Later in the afternoon, I would have been serenaded by fado singers.

However I had shopping and sightseeing to pack into a short stay.

The perfect time saving solution was a customised sidecar tour with Joao de Lemos Soares who runs tours in a fleet of restored vintage Russian machines. Mine was a 1949 Dnepr with a handy machine gun slot.

Oxford Mail:
Retro sardine tins on display at A Vida Portuguesa in Mouraria

Dispensing regal waves to passing pedestrians, we effortlessly, if noisily, skimmed up the steep narrow Alfama alleys and swooped down into Mouraria’s Intendente Square to shop at A Vida Portuguesa where under ceilings swirling with pottery swallows, everything Portuguese is sold: pottery, kitchenware, retro tinned foods, rag rugs, tiles, soaps, candles and wonderful old-fashioned toys like catapults, skipping ropes and spinning tops.

Joao and I refuelled ourselves in a neighbouring cafe with a bica, the strong shot of black Brazilian coffee that kickstarts the Lisboan’s morning before cutting across to Carmo square on another of Lisbon’s seven hills named for the Carmo church, its ruined ribs left as they fell in the great earthquake.

At the Sapataria do Carmo seated on a scarlet velvet sofa, I tried on supple leather handmade shoes and in Rua do Carmo dithered over which colour to choose from Luvaria Ulisses’ soft leather gloves .

What with the coffee and lurching over cobbled streets, I needed a ladies room. We found the ultimate; billed as The World’s Sexiest WC, located in the pillared Comerçio Square arcade and created by Renova, a local toilet paper manufacturer producing flamboyant colours including black, lime green, scarlet, sky blue.

I enjoyed music and a coloured paper of my choice (puce pink for the record) in a spacious, soundproofed unisex cabin. Handwashing was around a village fountain-like centre piece backed by a changing art gallery of sexy paintings.

Finally, we sped up the city‘s ‘spine’; the wide tree and designer shop lined Avenida da Liberdade to my hotel; the Ritz Four Seasons where I saw more paintings; the hotel’s unique collection of contemporary Portuguese art.

My favourite; Jorge Barradas’ tiled Alfama scene complete with a fadista hangs in the rooftop fitness centre from where I said my city farewell looking down to Castelo Sao Jorge and fado’s home.

FACT FILE:

Getting there:
British Airways (ba.com) fly twice daily to Lisbon from Heathrow.
Tourist office: visit lisboa.com
Solar do Castelo hotel (heritage.pt)
Ritz Four Seasons (fourseasons.com/lisbon)
Sidecar Touring (www.sidecartouring.co.pt).