Fado e Fado

Our first sounds of Fado came to us, called to us, from the confines of a small bar. It was next to our first rented Airbnb apartment in the heart of the Alfama neighborhood and we ended each night sitting and listening to locals take the stage to sing their mournful songs accompanied by the magical sounds of the twelve-stringed Portuguese guitar. We were hooked.

Fado is said to have originated in the 1800s either by the Portuguese sailors at sea or in Lisbon as its residents took to song to describe their worlds. It began at the margins of society, among sailors, bar patrons and prostitutes and grew into a widely accepted and UNESCO recognized symbol of Portuguese culture and identity.

Following those first sounds, in that small, dark bar in Alfama, we visited the Fado Museum, took in dinner and a concert at a Fado bar in Coimbra, were serenaded by a group of young men singing Fado de Coimbra (the group version) on the street below our apartment in Porto for an entire afternoon. I’ve taken to listening to the Fado soundtrack on our overnight TAP airline flights from Boston to Lisbon as I drift off into a short nap, to prepare me for my return to this land. We’ve visited the Amália Rodrigues museum in her former home, taken in a concert in a church in Tavira, and taken visitors to Fado restaurants in Alfama and Bairro Alto. But we’d been missing that “go-to”. That place we take guests to experience that same feeling we first felt in the dark non-commercialized neighborhood bar next to our apartment.

We were missing it. Or as you’d say in Portuguese, we had saudades, a feeling of longing, for that place we could return to share that experience with friends. And then, as karma and the magic of Instagram’s mind-reading algorithms combined, it was thrust upon us: Fado e Fado.

Set underground and under the arches of the old walls of Lisbon from the 11th century the Fado singers and musicians, educate and entertain for 50 minutes three times nightly. It’s reasonably priced, doesn’t require you to take in a large meal and is no tourist trap. Just an hour of music while you sip a small glass of port wine.

“A shawl, a guitar, a voice and a lot of feeling. A recognised symbol of Portugal, this simple image can describe Fado, a music of the world that is Portuguese. They say that Fado is Fado, that it comes from within the Portuguese soul” and if you’re lucky, it just might capture yours.

30 seconds of Fado

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