Spanish views from a small town

I was finally able to drag my husband down to Portugal, specifically to Porto, my favorite foreign city. He had been under the impression, generated by dumb stereotypes, that Portugal was a poor country with no initiative, which produced cheap goods. He still had the images from boyhood of people who would go down to northern Portugal to the feiras , the open air markets, to buy cheap linens and housewares that were badly made and inexpensive. That was because from the oil crisis of the mid seventies, to around ten years later, the years of my husband's boyhood, Portugal confronted an economic downturn. Since the mid eighties till this last world recession, Portugal has grown exponentially. Now, it is beginning to recover, as well, much better than Spain, which still pursues the austerity delusion.  As a result, Porto is now being recuperated. Old gems of buildings are being reconstructed or recuperated. The first time I visited, in March, 2013, it seemed a sad city. Beautiful st...

I may safely say that Porto has become my favorite foreign city. It's at least the biggest city close to me that I can visit. It's bigger than Vigo, which is the biggest city in Galicia. Portugal is also the closest foreign country I can visit. At about an hour's drive, it's slightly closer than Paris by air. The biggest difference is I can drive to Portugal with much less expense than I can fly to Paris. And our pockets are in no mood for expenses.  On this trip, I decided to head straight for the iconic Livraría Lello, the bookstore I had always been meaning to visit, but never had. I had thought it would be a matter of showing up at the door and waltzing in, like at any bookshop, but no, it's not that easy. When I found the street, Rúa das Carmelitas, right next to the University, I saw a line stretching out the front door and down the street. As I followed the line, people were holding tickets. You need to buy a ticket to enter the bookstore. I picked out ...

Yesterday, I went on another of my little, by-myself trips. It was probably the last one until spring vacation. Again, I revisited Porto, which is fast becoming my favorite Portuguese city. It wears a different face every time I visit. Yeterday, it felt alive and resilient. It seemed to be simply tolerating the hordes of tourists, stubbornly continuing life as it has always been, while making allowance for visitors. The waterfront used to be the mainstay of the local economy, with port wine once being bottled and shipped by boat from the sheltered riverside docks of Vila Nova de Gaia and Porto itself. Matosinhos, north of Porto, is now the working port with containers from all over the world stacked, awaiting transport. Now, replicas of the old cask-carrying boats transport tourists up and down the river, up from the vineyards, and out to the mouth of the Douro.  But that's one of the few concessions Porto has made to tourists. Elsewhere, houses with broken tiles, ancient windows...

Yesterday I took a mental health day. It's a day in which I get in my car and go wherever I feel like going, leaving all responsibilities behind for one day. Yesterday I decided to go to Porto in Portugal. It's about two and a half hours away from where I live. I've been there before and I like the city. It's similar to cities I know in Spain, yet different enough to know I'm in another country. It's an old city and the first time I saw it was on a rainy day. Its tired buildings with crumbling façades, dirty ceramic tiles, and peeling paint made it seem ancient and poor. A row of houses.   It looked as if it wanted to retire from the modern world and rest quietly forever on the banks of its river. The next time I saw it, it looked old and poor but lively instead of tired. That day it looked like an old grandmother who threw on her brightest shawl and put on her reddest lipstick to go to the fair. The sun was shining hot and it was near the Eve of St. John,...