by Roy -

What do Guimarães in Portugal and Maribor in Slovenia have in common, apart from that most people cannot find them on a map? This year, the pair of cities share the title of European Capital of Culture.

The medieval city of Guimarães was made a World Heritage Site in 2001.

More than 40 towns and cities have held the honour since Athens was named the first European Capital of Culture in 1985. Selected by an international panel of cultural experts, the aim of the title is to bring different European countries closer together by highlighting the diversity of their cultures.

Castelo de Guimaraes

Despite being often overshadowed by Oporto, just 30 minutes to the southwest, it makes sense that this year the committee selected the burgeoning cultural scene of Guimarães in northern Portugal. With around half of its inhabitants under age 30, Guimarães is one of Europe’s youngest cities, both in age and spirit. A boom of contemporary culture in recent years has revived its medieval streetscapes, a World Heritage Site since 2001.

Now the year-long European Capital of Culture program is set to bring even more life to Guimarães. The rich repertoire of events ranges from music, cinema and photography to fine arts, theatre and dance. More importantly, a crop of new openings, sparked and partly financed by the program, is about to give a further boost to the city’s cultural landscape.

Centro Cultural Vila Flor (CCVF) 

Centro Cultural Vila Flor (CCVF) kick-started the city’s cultural revival when it opened in 2005 in a striking modern building added onto a converted 18th-century palace. Events at this culture powerhouse include movie screenings, cafe concerts, theatre and art exhibits. This year, as part of the European Capital of Culture program, CCVF will present the second edition of GUIdance (1 to 11 February), an international dance festival showcasing major contemporary dance companies such as Belgium’s les Ballets C de la B, who are slated to open the festival with the world premiere of their new work, Au-delà.

The Center for Art and Architecture Affairs,  Guimarães

The Center for Art and Architecture Affairs, unveiled in October 2011 in a former textile factory, is the latest opening in Guimarães. The non-profit collective promotes interaction between various fields of creative expression, including visual arts, design, film, literature, media, performing arts and architecture. Upcoming events on the European Capital of Culture program include a conference focused on the work of John Cage (10 March to 28 April) and Frame Art,  a video art and experimental cinema festival (3 May to 8 July).

Plus there is more in the pipeline. Opening in March in a run-down part of town called Couros (named after the area’s once flourishing leather industry) is the Design Institute, a partnership between the municipality, the University of Minho and Portugal’s National Design Association. Its inaugural exhibit, part of the European Capital of Culture program, will focus on product design, specifically the relationship between traditional products and contemporary design.

Another notable opening this year, scheduled for June, is the Platform of Arts and Creativity in a former market, a multipurpose space dedicated to arts and various creative endeavours. It kicks off with an exhibition by Portuguese painter José de Guimarães, with pieces from his private collection of pre-Colombian, African and Chinese art.

José de Guimarães

The same month will see the opening of the House of Memory, located in an old plastic factory right next door to the Platform. This cultural institution will host an interactive display composed of memory-laden personal items donated by the people of Guimarães. It is designed to tell and preserve the history of the common people, an admirable effort in this world that forgets and changes so quickly.

Anja Mutic

11 Jan 2012

http://www.bbc.com/travel/feature/20120111-guimaraes-culture-boost

Average Rating: 4.7 out of 5 based on 202 user reviews.

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by Roy -

It never takes long before people realize that Oporto (known to locals as Porto) is an extraordinary city. Perhaps they will be standing along the Douro River in Villa Nova de Gaia – the neighbourhood built and sustained by fortified port wine — captivated by the way Portugal’s second largest city looks like a pop up town, with medieval relics, soaring bell towers, extravagant baroque churches and stately beaux-arts buildings piled on top of one another, illuminated by streaming shafts of sun.

Or maybe it will be the quiet moments that grab them: the slosh of the Douro against the docks, the snap of laundry lines drying in river winds, the shuffle of a widow’s feet against the cobblestone, the sight of young lovers tangled in the notch of a graffiti bombed wall, the sound of wine glasses clinking under a full moon.

Yes, Porto is a tumbledown and artistic, historic and young, wine-drenched town that can make you weak in the knees in hundreds of different ways. Consider just three.

The night is alive

Porto is a college town, and the narrow cobblestone streets just north of Rua das Carmelitas, especially Rua Galeria de Paris, fill with young nocturnal marauders for an all-out street party on warm summer nights and on weekends throughout the year. Rockers and bohemians pile into Plano B, where the upstairs art gallery and cafe are atmospheric and social, but the cosy basement is kinetic with international indie rock, DJs, performance art and engaging theatre.

Guerrilla art

Maybe it is some postmodern, evolutionary art cycle, wherein the city chooses its worthy, salvageable relics and lets street artists fix the rest, but three-dimensional scrawl appears everywhere in Porto, on garage doors, crumbling ancient walls, empty storefront glass and neglected stucco. Here, a stencilled pilgrim; there, a cloaked bodhisattva. There is no getting around it — when graffiti tolerance is this high, it becomes a sort of passive celebration. And in Porto the graffiti deserves to be celebrated. It is massive, ubiquitous and spectacular, especially at Lapa Metro Station.

Classic flavour

Roast Veal Dinner

Tucked into a tight corner of the Unesco-certified Ribeira district, A Grade (Rua da Saoicolau 9, 223-321-130) is a humble family operation and a masterwork of traditional fare. Padre Ferreira works the room with a beaming smile and generous pours of tawny port. Madre Elena prefers her tiled kitchen where she bakes octopus in butter and wine, and presents special roast veal dinners in gorgeous casseroles alongside sautéed kale and crispy potatoes. The meal ends with free nips of Padre’s house-aged aguardiente (Portuguese brandy) then guests are released and drawn to the banks of that ever present Douro River: a sheet of dimpled glass reflecting a glittering, dreamy city.

Adam Skolnick

10Jan 2012

http://www.bbc.com/travel/feature/20120110-urban-treasures-in-oporto

Average Rating: 4.6 out of 5 based on 263 user reviews.

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by Roy -
This article is written by Justin Rabindra. Justin is a Manager with an Advertising Agency in Delhi. He is also an avid traveler and photographer.
The Church in Faro, Portugal
There’s something about churches and cathedrals in Europe that transport you to another time and era in an instant. We have walked into scores and a favourite pass time of Rosita and Ragini is to light candles at every opportunity. I don’t know where they acquired this habit from (maybe the Catholic college Rosita attended), but I prefer to explore the artworks and iconography and wonder how many years it took a person to complete a job, and whether clients ever told them, “it was wanted yesterday.” Despite being located in crowded, noisy cities the inside of churches is silent, protected by thick walls and heavy wooden doors. I usually allow myself one, hopefully well chosen photograph, because the sound of the camera clicking is like a gun shot in the silence.
I don’t remember the name of this church in Faro, but like several churches in Europe it was empty of visitors, certainly of worshippers. The few that you do see are bent old women, like a relative said cruelly, “preparing for the final exams.”
Justin Rabindra
29 Nov 2008
http://justinrabindra.blogspot.com/2008/11/church-in-faro-portugal.html

Average Rating: 4.9 out of 5 based on 232 user reviews.

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