Esplanadas, the best of Portugal
The first memories as a child were probably going to the playground slide while my parents looked after me at the café, reading the newspaper.
Every Saturday morning, my parents used to buy the Diário de Notícias, the national newspaper in Portugal and would sit at the café for all morning. Although my father used to carry a book everywhere he went, Saturday morning meant the newspaper day. The newspaper came with a stack of magazines, including a children’s magazine. After running around the playground, I would sit with my parents coloring those magazines while they would drink coffee, comment the news and read the newspaper from the beginning to the end.
The Saturday tradition was not just on Saturday…
I always remember my father reading at cafés. Every time he had some free time, we would take his physics book and find a café to help him concentrate. Dozens of times, I joined him or met him by coincidence at the café, while walking in the neighborhood.
Eventually, I created the pleasure of sitting at the café as well. Scribbling ideas, reading stories, observing people.
Each time I am back in Portugal, I spare some time to be at a café, by myself, doing all that again.
I may say Portugal is the right scene for that: with countless terraces, sun side, almost always with great temperatures and naturally with a great expresso.
I just described the cafés’ reality for the most of Portuguese, but as I am leaving abroad, I appreciate it even more.
I do not deny the amazing terraces I have been sitting: the classy hipster local coffee-shops in Amsterdam, the Parisian open-air day-dreaming terraces or the Asiatic stylish terraces in Chiang Mai.
Everywhere I go, I seek for a cute and inspiring terrace to have a coffee and look around…
But, doing it in Portugal, it’s more than traveling through coffee, instead, it is feeling back home again.
July 18th 2021,
Patricia Assis
