Dead People, Trains and the Hat

 

So much of this country’s attractions are focused on dead people.  Yesterday I took a train up to Guimaraes and hit some of the important spots.  Guimaraes is constantly wrangling with Braga as to which should be considered the “birthplace” of Portugal.  Guimaraes is where the battle was, Braga is the city who provided the troops.  The two towns are about 10 miles apart. To our “modern” minds this distance is nothing.  To soldiers and knights from 1,000 years again, ten miles was a much, much longer trip.  The debate really sounds like a philosophical question to me, it is not totally removed from Theseus’s ship.

 

Two of the big attractions in Guimaraes are the castle and the ducal palace.  The palace is large and very Arthurian.  I am told Salazar the dictator expanded the palace and used it as a residence during his years in power.  The castle got tweaked and refurbished during that period but it did not get the expansion the palace did.  Walked through the palace.  Room after room of heavy dark furniture, fireplaces and what appear to be Flemish tapestries.  And Jesus did I mention the uphill climb to these places.  Ugh.  Fat American whine.

 

Anyway, both sites are impressive but located between them is a small chapel from the early 1200s.  It is here the first king of Portugal is said to have been baptized.  The building is empty save an altar and the tombs beneath the floor.  You are allowed to walk in to the church but you can only walk around the exterior wall the center being roped off.  Stone after stone is set in the floor’s middle marking the burial spot of important men.  Given the era, men and not women are interred here. Crosses are carved onto the stones.  Swords are too.  Latin inscriptions abound.

 

Looking down at the tombs I found myself humming a lyric by Van the (Foolish in Regards to Covid) Man.  It goes,

 

You can't stop us on the road to freedom

You can't keep us 'cause our eyes can see

Men with insight, men in granite

Knights in armor bent on chivalry

 

Tupelo Honey by Van Morrison

 

So much of what is an attraction is tied to the acts of great dead people.  The ducal palace was the home of powerful but now dead people.  Same with the castle.  In Porto proper there is a church with the heart of one of the kings of Portugal residing in it.  History defines so much of our character, so much of the place where we come from ethos. It is important to visit these sites with open eyes knowing that what you are seeing has been interpreted and reinterpreted so many times. No matter what the current interpretation is these places are touchmarks of a people’s history.

 

Okay the train part.  When you ride a train here you have to electronically validate your ticket before you get on.  I swear to God I did it before I got on the train back to Porto.  But it did not register on the conductor’s hand-held device.  Had to listen to a canned spiel about the Euro 150 fine and then got the dumb American shrug of I am not going to throw you off the train…. this time.  

 

Early on I bought a hat.  I have now abandoned it.  Nothing says I am a stupid gullible tourist more than the hat they sell at every stall in every market. Got to find a distressed ball cap.  Also got to lose the floral Hawaiian shirts. Need to pick up some football style shirts and horizontally stripped shirts. These will not make me look European but they will make me look less clearly and unequivocally American. If I lost 40 pounds (18 kg) that would help too.