Whatever happened to Portugal?

(Port comes from Portugal which makes it best country Evah!)

They owned too much places around the world but since they are a tiny tiny country they couldnt guard most of it so they only stick to Brasil and some bits of africa cos the rest was robbed by spanish, french and english. Then after King Sebastiao died the throne got robbed by Felipe and they spent almost a century under Spain, after Felipe went out they had no money left. Then when Napoleon got most of Europe they stuck in the side of England and got fucked cos they were alone, then the king + family had to come to Brasil and we got much more open cos England started selling their stuff here. after we gor independent it pretty mcuh went down the dumper

http://www.colderclimate.com/clarabelle/tour/terrace.jpg

Mind you, the deposit left after decanting does look like sump oil.

anyone ever been here - article makes me want to go
http://travel.nytimes.com/2007/06/24/travel/24next.html

Anyone know the origin of Portugal's name? Is it 'Port du/de Gall'? or something similar?

"Portugal's name derives from the Roman name Portus Cale..."

It comes from this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portus_Cale

Portugal's name derives from the Roman name Portus Cale, as well as the city of Porto. Portucale evolved into Portugale during the 7th and 8th centuries, and by the 9th century, that term was used extensively to refer to the region between the rivers Douro and Minho, the Minho flowing along what would become the northern border between Portugal and Spain.

There are a lot of Portugese in London, I hear it spoken all the time on the bus - could be Brazilians of course. Come the World Cups + Euros the Portugese flag is one of the ones you see most often.

https://www.portugalresident.com/algarve-drought-nears-catastrophic-level/

Love Portugal, hate seeing that Chega guy’s smug face on every billboard.

Also admire the commitment to double parking on both sides of the one-way narrow street.

Ha, going in May and hoping to avoid driving, but may rent a car to go to the drought-stricken south? Would love to hear your tips/experiences.

I’ve been in Porto and the north, saving Lisbon and points south for another time. Highly recommend Coimbra, just lovely, small, but had a liveliness to it since it’s a university town. Salazar’s alma mater!

Oof, apologies for the fucking Ventura billboards, at least in Porto ppl have been quite good at vandalizing those.

Coimbra not so much "a" but THE university town, it's in its main distinguishing feature. Lots of great stuff from there tho I do hate the whole black uniform serenade shit.

Hey I went to the University of Virginia a lot of performative “tradition” there too.

50 years ago today

will head to my local portuguese cafe-bar for lunch :)

hopefully the proprietor isn't a salazar fan (i suspect he isn't)

Wish him a happy 25th and find out :)

After an initial "Oh yes, I didn't know it was the 50th" and an initial "I was a little boy in South Africa then, wasn't a big deal to us", uncorked a resounding "all it did was create all these bloody corrupt governments!" x_x

Cited Jose Socrates. I nodded and smiled. Not my area of expertise. But...hmm

Anyone running a small customer-facing business has at least a 60% chance of being a reactionary crank, regardless of nationality.

Sounds like a Chega voter all right!

Happy 50th!

I was in Porto a couple of weeks ago having a marvellous time. That is, until a full-on (and pretty terrfiying) ne0 n4z1 protest started taking place right outside our apartment window. earlier in the day we'd also spotted a totally separate anti-abortion march going through the city. no it won't do

Sad stuff. Friends back home are mobilizing against it and I feel a bit of guilt over not being there to contribute...not that things are great here either.

I do think (hope?) that the anti-abortion stuff is gonna turn more ppl off these fash wankers than anything else.

Damn. I'll be there in a few weeks (Lisbon > Madeira > Porto > ???), excited.

lisbon is great, just so great

I really loved my mere week in Northern Portugal, want to go back and see Lisbon, Evora, etc.

Where did you go in the north besides Porto?

The Douro valley, Vila Real, and Coimbra (which isn’t really that north)

Oh nice, we're definitely planning on Douro and I want to go to Coimbra too.

We only stopped in Coimbra for lunch (and unluckily it was graduation day or something and packed with berobed students & their families), but it seemed really nice. I'd recommend this place if veg/an appeals: https://veg.fangas.pt/home-en/

My wife is vegetarian, thanks!

I have Lisbon vegetarian recommendations too...just give me a sec

I'm having trouble figuring out the names of some places we went, but I can say:

Ao 26 was the best strictly vegan place I went to, and what's cool about it is they do vegan versions of some of the trad Portuguese stuff you otherwise can't eat (e.g., francesinha).

Senhor Uva is good too (both of these are on the fancy side though), though it's tapas & wine and we were all still a little hungry at the end of the meal -- in contrast, Ao 26 was very filling.

But mostly I'd just say that it's easier to be vegetarian, even vegan, there than people who haven't been recently will tell you. Even down in Faro I got by okay

Excellent, tysm!

my pleasure! we were there last May, which is a great time to visit

rob, I went to Fangas Veg too! It's great, and the people are really nice!

that's true, they were nice! there were also beautiful lace scarves hung up all over town the day we were there

I went to Portugal in 2005, a friend was involved in a garage rock festival in a place called Barreiro, I stayed in Lisbon and took the ferry across there each day. On the last day we had dinner with one of the bands playing, which meant I ate fish pie with Billy Childish, not a lifelong dream, but still very cool times. After the bands had all played I hung out with them until the sun was coming up, then made my way back to the ferry, there was literally one every 15 minutes but for some reason I decided to drunkenly run to catch the one that was leaving, tripped over a bit of pavement and landed straight on my face. Somebody helped me up and I said "am I ok?" and they looked at me grimly and shook their head. The ferry people called an ambulance and half an hour later they had taken the stones out of my face and sewn me up, I still have a scar on my chin but thankfully that's all - though for the next two weeks a few people asked me if I'd been in a motorbike accident and I had to say "no I just fell on my face." Anyway it's still a good memory overall and I think about it any time I see the (not disfiguring) scar in the mirror.

Just found out Nuno Espírito Santo is from Barreiro, nice!

xp That sounds like something I would've done in 2005

https://keithfullertonwhitman.bandcamp.com/album/lisbon

people have had more lethal encounters with billy the kid tbf

Fwiw it's my dream to emigrate to Portugal one day for some reason. I have been three times since 2018, falling in love with the country on my first visit. Can't wait to go back again

huh.. I've been to Spain but never Portugal, maybe I should go check it out

but I drink more sherry than port

Enjoyed this piece, and I don't read Jacobin that often.

https://jacobin.com/2024/04/portugal-revolution-military-coup-anticolonialism

There's a bust of Willy Brandt in Porto, somewhere near Serralves, whose presence is explained by the SPD intervention that article mentions.

Thousands of Cape Verdeans have gathered in Lisbon, Portugal, demanding justice for Odair Moniz, who was unjustly shot by the police. pic.twitter.com/nwsfCFlbmj

— African News feed. (@africansinnews) October 27, 2024

The Museum of Resistance and Freedom in Lisbon is incredible. Feels more relevant today than ever.

https://www.museudoaljube.pt/en/

Looks like its worth going to Lisbon just for that

I went there a couple of years ago and I still think about it. One of its strengths is that it doesn’t try to be a clearinghouse for all resistance movements everywhere. It tells the specific story of political repression and resistance in Portugal in the 20th century as expressed in the actual building it’s situated in, which was a prison for leftist political targets. So you’re surrounded by all the actual corridors and cells and little telephone nooks. And there’s also all this supporting material - a printing press that was operated clandestinely to produce pamphlets, photographs, ciphers, torture devices, testimony, audio recordings. It’s very powerful.

Presidential elections today - the little fascist fuck is almost guara.nteed to make it to the second round

shit

he looks like a Latin JD Vance

Center left candidate at 31%, the nazi's at 23%. Center right refuses to endorse either candidate in a second round.

phew

Indeed!

1. Seguro (the center left candidate) received more votes than anyone ever has before in a presidential election, and won every district but two.

2. The fascist did nonetheless get more votes than his party did at the last elections, so is still ascendant.

3. The Iniciativa Liberal (right wing neoliberal party, small but ascendant in previous elections) has come out to decry the fascist as "economically, a socialist" - which is hilarious cope and just blatantly untrue, as the fascist party is financed by some of Portugal's biggest corporations.

4. Context here is Portugal has been suffering under enormous floods for the past few weeks, some people will only be able to vote later (though not enough to mess with the results). Within that context it is very notable how many people turned out.