Braga

Olivia and I flew from Madrid to Porto, Portugal where we met my brother Brooks who had taken a train from Braga, where he and Necla have lived for the last two years. Then we ubered to Braga. Planes, trains and automobiles!

Braga is a beautiful inland town with a medieval wall and very old cathedral which has a couryard full of carved stone artifacts from the Romans (in Braga 14 bc - 411 ad) and Celtics (600bc - whenever). who apparently had consecutive temples there before the Christians built on top of them as they were wont to do.

Brooks is the best tour guide because, like me, he's curious about everything. But he's also smarter and has a better memory than me. He either knows everything about the history, of Braga, what the symbols on the coats of arms carved on buildings and walls mean (15 tassels with 5 on the bottom is for the archbishop, etc) or he was just making shit up the whole time, which would be almost as impressive. He also knows the best hole in the wall places for lunch, the lady in the big Saturday market stops serving other customers to reach out and hand him a cinnamon nata she knows he likes.

Necla (from Turkey) is a whiz at languages, and seems fluent in Portugues already, chatting away to everybody. Brooks is still getting there (he's taking lessons) and yet we ran into people he knew all over town.

Necla said this is the first place in a long time she wanted to settle down (she's from Turkey, where she and Brooks have lived, they met in Singapore while living there, she lived in China for awhile, etc). So they bought a place in Braga which is still being built.

Portugal is the only country I've been to where they tile the outside of the houses. Not only is it beautiful, but seems to me that it would make for a very durable surface that is also easy to clean. Did I take many pictures of them? Guess. We also met Sergio, who runs a guitar store in Braga and he told us all about - and played -.all these different esoteric Portugues instruments. Video attached of him with a Fado guitarもっと詳しく