The best Fado in Lisbon. A media update for our hotel guests

Bets of Fado in Lisbon? (a media update to friends of our hotel)

We get hundreds of news updates about Lisbon everyday. The best and most relevant stories we share with friends, guests and followers here on Tings Lisbon’s blog. Mostly stories about things that interest us personally or things that are relevant to our hotel or Graça.

Like this Fado and Sardines story from Minnesota paper: StarTribune

Enjoy.

  [caption id="attachment_7489" align="aligncenter" width="267"] I don’t know when the StarTribune visited Lisbon – but NEVER eats sardines outside the season. We only eat them when Catarina – the owner of our local Tasca allows us to :-)[/caption]

Have you ever heard a song so tender and soulful it brought you to tears, even though you couldn’t understand a word? That’s how I feel about fado, a Portuguese folk music tradition that blends the drama and rhythm of flamenco with the sentimentality of a torch song. You don’t need to speak Portuguese to appreciate these melancholy ballads. They are songs of love, loss and longing, rooted in Portugal’s seafaring culture, which for centuries has bid farewell to sailors, not knowing when or whether they’d return. I recently took a quick trip to Lisbon with my sister — and unlike those early explorers, our return was guaranteed — and we managed in four nights to visit four fado clubs. By day, we toured Lisbon’s Museu do Fado (fado museum), as well as the home of the late, great fado singer Amalia Rodrigues. We also visited many sites honoring Portugal’s great explorers, who beginning in the 15th century established a colonial empire that spanned the globe. Read the Startribunes story: Fado, sardines and the Age of Exploration: A visit to Lisbon

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