OLD NEIGHBORHOODS & FADO
(Alfama/Bairro Alto/Mouraria)
This is a five senses tour in which you will have a walking tour in an old neighbourhood at your choice from Alfama, Bairro Alto or Mouraria, that will end with a traditional Fado show.
On this tour you will contact with people, joining their history with music.
The Fado music, World Heritage, sings the life of the Portuguese people, which you will pass through in every corner.
In this amazing experience you will be able to contact with people that always have and still live in those places and authentically experience Portugal’s past, present and livelihood throughout the years.
fado
Mouraria is the birthplace of Fado Music
Each neighbourhood has its own traditions that can be seen in the ways of living of its inhabitants but all of them have a special interest.
“Our tour guide and driver went out of their way to make our trip to Lisbon one we will never forget.”
Alfama is the oldest one and the one in which you still find some houses in its narrow streets from before Lisbon’s earthquake. Its people are expansive and its authenticity will impress you even now when it is one of the most touristic neighbourhoods.
Mouraria is the birthplace of Fado Music. Here Severa, the first Fado singer known, lived her poor and sad live in a whorehouse frequented by sailors, since it was near the riverside. The streets are sometimes very narrow and the neighbourhood is nowadays a mix of cultures like nowhere else in Lisbon. You will find in here immigrants from every origin living life in peace and harmony.
Bairro Alto is completely different from the first two, with a geometric map that has been studied to avoid fires and to allow passage to the horse-carriages. Bairro Alto means higher neighbourhood and was the place where many nobles stablished their Palaces and Manor Houses to be near the King which lived in Terreiro do Paço, in the city centre, those days.
But its closed structure instigated the whorehouses and tertúlias to rise and quickly became the elected place for students and nobles, writers and men in general and for Fado.
It’s not easy to choose…