Of the Algarve, Sun, Dry Bread and Soft Bread
Portuguese as She is Not Spoken

«(...) Even the name of the town gives food for thought or for another search. In fact, the Algarve is full of odd names which only by convention or imposition from the centre could be called Portuguese. This is true of Budens and Odiáxere, and also of Bensafrim, which the traveller intends to visit, also Odelouca, which is a river up ahead, Porches, Boliqueime and Paderne, Nexe and Odeleite, Quelfes and Dogueno, or Laborato and Lotão, Giões and Clarines, Gilvrazino and Benafrim. But the search for the origin of these names, and how their roots have changed from ancient memory to today's necessity, is beyond the traveller's scope: that would need specialised knowledge and experience, not this simple act of looking and seeing, walking and coming to a halt, thinking and speaking one's thoughts.

Seen from the outside, the church at Estômbar looks like a miniature cathedral, as if the larger one at Alcobaça had been shrunk to fit into a village square. That in itself makes it a fascinating place. But it also has excellent eighteenth-century tiles and above all - ah, above all, it has two sculpted columns unlike anything else in Portugal. It seems to the traveller in fact that they must have been made in distant lands and brought here. They show (if you will excuse the traveller his fantasy) a Polynesian concern for leaving no surface empty, and the ornamental carving representing vegetation looks like what we call Amazon vines. None of the plants displayed in stylised for looks like a native Portuguese specimen. It's true that the bases of the columns represent hawsers (typical of the sixteenth century) and that the figures shown are playing typical musical instruments from the same period, but the overall impression is one of strangeness. Unfortunately for this hypothesis, the sandstone they are made from is local. Perhaps the artist who sculpted them came from somewhere else. Anyway, it's another little puzzle which anyone who cares can resolve, just as the name of the village Estômbar itself once meant something.

To reach Portimão you have to cross the bridge over the River Arade, if river is the correct term in this estuary, because by now it is more a question of the sea ebbing and flowing between the Praia da Rocha and the Ponta do Altar than of the small water courses that flow down from the hills of Monchique or Carapinha and converge here. The traveller went to the church, and as usual found it closed. He was not too put out at this though, because the best of the building is outside, namely the architrave showing warriors which, although not in itself unusual in the fourteenth century when churches were often also fortresses, in this case is out of the ordinary because it shows both men and women in armour and carrying weapons. (…)

The ancient Lacóbriga, Lagos' Roman ancestor, was built on the hill of Molião. One day a certain Metellus, who was a supporter of Sulla, then the ruler of Hispania Ulterior (that is to say, the Portuguese part of the peninsula), decided to lay siege to Lacóbriga until they ran out of water, since he knew the town had only one uncertain well. Sertorius came to the town's aid, with men and two thousand wineskins of water, and when Metellus sent Aquinus with six thousand soldiers to meet him, Sertorius defeated them in battle.

Dom Sebastião, King of Portugal and the Algarve, also came to Lagos. In the towns walls there is a Manueline window from where, as tradition has it for lack of any real evidence, the king took part in an open-air Mass before his departure for Alcácer Quibir, where he not only lost his life, but Portugal lost its independence. If we look back at his reign, there is not much to thank him for… (…)

Lagos also has a slave market, but it does not seem very proud of the fact. It is a kind of raised platform in the Praça da República, with pillars supporting the floor. This was where the auctions took place for the best price on a well-trained negro or a nubile negress with lovely breasts. There is no telling whether they wore collars or not. When the traveller looked for the market, he almost missed it. The square is taken up with building materials and motorbikes: as if the modern day were trying to wipe away all trace of past stains. If the traveller were in a position of power in Lagos, he would have some sets of chains installed here, and a place to see where these human cattle were sold, and perhaps a statue of someone like Dom Enrique, who benefited so greatly from this trade.

To calm his spirits, the traveller finally went to visit the church of San António de Lagos. From the outside, it does not seem much: bare stone, an empty niche, a bull's-eye window surrounded by shells, the usual coat of arms. But once inside, after so many wearisome gilded carvings, so much wood carved in scrolls, palms, roots or vines, after so many double-chinned cherubs, plumper than decency recommends, after so many gargoyles and figureheads, it was time for the traveller to find all of this summed up and taken to its paroxysm within four walls, and yet somehow ennobled by its very excess. The master woodcarvers completely lost their heads in São António de Lagos: everything the Baroque age invented is here. It is not always perfectly executed, and not always in impeccable taste, but even these mistakes somehow help the overall effect: the eye stops and wants to make a critical judgment, but is immediately swept on in what the traveller can only describe as a devilish dance. Were it not for the edifying series of eighteenth-century panels depicting the life of St Anthony, said to be the work of the painter Rasquinho of Loulé, there would be serious doubts about the efficacy of any prayers said in a place like this, with so many worldly temptations displayed all around.

The wooden roof is barrel-vaulted, and painted in a daring perspective that continues the vertical of the walls, imitates marble columns, glass windows and finally, the vault itself, which seems much more distant than it really is. In the corners, the four evangelists peer down suspiciously at the traveller. Hanging from the ceiling is the Portuguese coat of arms as it was in the eighteenth century. This is the kingdom of artifice, of make-believe. But, and the traveller says this in all honesty, it is all wonderfully well done, and the geometrical challenges have all been superbly overcome. Who painted the ceiling? Nobody knows.

From the church one can move on to the museum, or visit it directly. Lagos has some good archaeological exhibits, well explained, dating from the paleolithic times to the Roman era. The traveller particularly liked the pieces from the Iberian age: a bronze helmet, a small bone statue, ceramic pots, and much else besides. The statue is strange: one of its hands is across the chest, the other across the sex, so that it is impossible to tell whether it represents a male or female figure. But what most demands a good look is the ethnographic section. It includes regional handicrafts, with a good display of rustic tools and implements, and some models of carts, boats, fishing tackle, and a water-wheel; but also some teratological specimens preserved in jars: a cat with two heads, a kid goat with six legs, and other objects that upset our notions of normality and perfection. But above all, the museum at Lagos has the best guide there could be (and could he be, as in Faro, the director of the museum, but too shy to admit it?): as the traveller was standing in front of a piece of lace or some object made of cork, or a dummy dressed up in regional costume, he could hear the guide's explanation whispered behind him, with invariably the final words: “the people”. To explain it more carefully - imagine the traveller is looking at a wicker basket, perfectly shaped for the function it has to perform. The guard would tiptoe up and say: “fisherman's basket”. Then there would be a short pause, after which, as if he were saying who the work should be attributed to, he would add: “the people”, There can be no doubt about it. As he reaches the very end of his voyage, in Lagos the traveller has heard the final word.

(…) “His journey is over”.

The Traveller Sets Out Again

“But that is not true. The journey is never over. Only travellers come to an end. But even then they can prolong their voyage in their memories, in recollections, in stories. When the traveller sat in the sand and declared: “There's nothing more to see,” he knew it wasn't true. The end of one journey is simply the start of another. You have to see what you missed the first time, see again what you already saw, see in springtime what you saw in summer, in daylight what you saw at night, see the sun shining where you saw the rain falling, see the crops growing, the fruit ripen, the stone which has moved, the shadow that was not there before. You have to go back to the footsteps already taken, to go over them again or add fresh ones alongside them. You have to start the journey anew. Always. The traveller sets out once more.»