Fado in Porto

We're on the 9am bus to Porto, "Babette”’s crew and another pleasant twosome crew, with dog, from the Annapolis sailboat, "Chaliventure".

Through partly smoky hills, cornfields and villages to the big city of Porto. What a city! Tall, impressive stone buildings, whole facades covered with colored, often patterned tiles. Sky-blue churches, red, yellow, green houses, in shiny tile. Porto has no lack of huge churches, palaces, the Cathedral, the Sé. But it’s rundown.

The city shows a great need of rebuilding and repair. Old buildings have obviously been torn down, whole blocks of them. New ones are coming up, but there is little evidence of good restoration in this UNESCO-listed historic old city.

Here there are buildings that are so tall and lanes so narrow that the sun never falls on the dark cobblestones.

Down on the waterfront in the Ribeira district Porto opens up onto a view out the Duora River and its many bridges. The old iron one is another of Eiffel's design. It has a single round arch and carries both cars and trains over to the far bank where the port wine cellars are lined up along the shore. We took a riverboat ride under the five bridges. We noticed that the harbor wall wasn't the ideal place to tie up a sailboat. There was just one useable iron ladder for the long, green and slimy climb from ebb-tide waters.

We found a great place to spend the night: the Grand Hotel de Paris. Elegant and cheap! Lovely atriums, various sitting rooms, palms, pianos, eclectically decorated. The long, turn-of-the-century dining room, for breakfast, was light and airy, opening out to a garden, with fountain. Our double room, 50 euros, was pleasant, with a balcony and view towards the tall "Clerigos" tower. And a tub.

Just before siesta, on our way up a steep, dark lane in the old city, we noticed a hand-written sign: Fado tonight. For a deposit of 10 euros we could reserve a table for dinner and music from 10 to ca. 2am. So we did. The café is Casa Porto á Noite, in Rúa da Mercadores, and I wouldn't have missed this evening for the world.

There are six tables, about 25 people who get to experience this incredible Fado evening. The food is great, new variations on bacalão, more fried fish croquettes.

At one table a baby, a grandmother and two women are sitting. They turn out to be two of the Fado singers. The cook is another, along with a gangling 20-somethingish fellow. They are all accompanied by two older gentlemen on the mandolin and Spanish guitar. The women chang shawls to go with the song's mood: sad song, black shawl. They sing the melancholy, or the more lively Fados with unabashed pathos. There is an enormous range of volume. From a hoarse whisper to a powerful concert-hall-filling cry. In this tiny café, the songs echo from its stone walls out into the night, to the dark, narrow stone lane. The whole café joins in choruses, enthusiastic clapping. The waiter joins in with comments and choruses. Grandmother hushes if it gets too noisy. Since the toilet is right behind the performers one has to plan a visit there carefully. At about 2am we walk up the steep cobblestones back to Hotel de Paris.

Fado will forever be located in Porto's dark lanes for us.