Can you sing the fado?

“Fado was born one day … on a sailor’s chest, who, feeling sad, started to sing…” So goes one of the most beautiful fado songs, the music that very much defines Lisbon’s and Coimbra’s urban folk spirituality. Yes, you can find the same meaning in blues or flamenco, but fado is a whole other thing. It deals with a feeling unique to Portugal, always difficult to define, the “saudade” (“longing”), which, as a poet once said, is when you miss something you never had.

But none of this is a treatise on sadness, quite the opposite. Fado is cathartic, in the best sense, and takes us down the bohemian paths of old Lisbon and Coimbra, in a captivating nocturnal experience.

In the country’s capital, the place we want is called Alfama. It is one of the oldest districts in the city, full of Muslim, Jewish and Christian legends, which in one way or another have been translated into the poetry of fado, born in the 19th century. Here’s the deal: lose yourself in the labyrinth of Alfama, an intricate network of small streets and houses that literally show how Lisbon was many centuries ago, and let yourself be taken to one of the best “fado joints”. Here you’ll find the guitarists and singers who will leave your mouth open, which is good, because the traditional cuisine served at the same time is impeccable!

Then you must go to Coimbra. In this ancient city, home to one of the oldest universities in the world, founded in the 13th century, there is a different kind of fado. It echoes the melodies and words of the medieval poetry of the troubadours. And who sings and plays it? The university students, wrapped in their black cloaks. You can listen to them in discrete establishments taverns, which are like small temples, or in the middle of the night in a narrow street in the historic center.

Either in Lisbon or Coimbra, we guarantee, you’ll leave with “saudade” for this poetic nocturnal world.