One of my goals in this Porto trip is to see a traditional Portuguese musical or theatrical act. I have not done any previous research, but knew that the city theater has regular shows that I can check out when on-site. However, I was quite worried, in fact I dreaded sitting in a dragging theatrical or musical show. I do not know what to expect? My span of attention can be very short when things get mind-numbing.
Fado musical act
All I wanted was to see or experience what typical Portuguese music is. That’s it. Nothing more, nothing less. If I liked it, then that would be cool, and if not, I’ll just chuck it to experience. Booking the Calem cave tour + Port tasting + Fado evening was a handy thing for me. It was like hitting 3 birds with 1 stone!
Now, I did the Calem cave tour and Port tasting earlier in the afternoon, and then I came back at 18:30 for more Port tasting and for the Fado musical evening program.
To learn more about Fado go here: Fado
At the Fado evening, I managed to record a few minutes snippet of a performance. The male and female singers took turns each singing on stage accompanied with 2 guitarists (and this is typically Fado) and towards the end of the musical act they performed a duet.
It turns out that Fado was not really for me, at least now I know what it is, so when people talk about Fado—Portuguese music, I know what they mean.
The Fado at Calem was quite good though. The performers were very talented and I got the impression that they were famous Fado singers in Portugal, however, as I said, this type of music is not for me. I started to become bored, luckily the performances were not long and my attention was partly settled on the 3 glasses of port that I needed to finish.
I had a white port, a tawny port and a special reserve port. The latter was smooth. Including the 2 glasses of port I had in the earlier tasting, this makes the count a total of 5 glasses of port just before dinner!
More Port tasting and more Fado…
I wasn’t tipsy, my cheeks were just rosy which is a typical reaction that I get when I have a few glasses, so after the Fado performance and visiting the toilet (see picture above) to freshen up, I sat down on a bench on the boulevard while taking in some fresh air and watching the beautiful lights embellishing Porto across the river.
When I am travelling alone, I never get lonely, although usually at the tail-end of these solo trips, I tend to start missing the Dutchman.
Anyway, I will be having dinner later and will have the same stunning views.
Travel Period: March 2013
Destination: Vila Nova de Gaia (Grande Porto), Portugal
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