Alfama, District of the Moors

September 14, 2010

Day 3

Our first breakfast was in the hotel dining room, elegantly prepared with tables covered with white cotton tablecloth. The meal was buffet but with healthy offerings, giving us the zest to embark another Portuguese district, expecting to be captivated by its uniqueness.

            As everyone finished the morning repast, we went to the Moorish district of Alfama, driving through Avenida da Liberdad, a historical tree-lined boulevard each side tenanted by banks, airline offices, grand hotels, high-end shops, and original mansions now occupied by families or businesses. Thoughts of previous occupants of these mansions and the goings-on there  centuries ago preoccupied my imagination.

We reached Alfama and met our local guide Dulce. She gave us a good discourse on the history of the district. She said that in Arabic, Alfama means spring, the spring that flowed from this district to the Atlantic Ocean. Today the district is a good reminder of the Moorish occupation of Portugal particularly Lisbon. It is here that the Moorish community started and is as alive today as it was in the year 711. Here the Moors established its rule of Lisbon and renamed it Al-Isbunah. They established Arabic as the official language, and proclaimed Islam as the official religion. The Christians however, were free to keep theirs. Today, eighty-five percent of the people living in the district are Catholic, twenty-five percent of which are active in the Church. The church was and is their hub, the activities holding the community together. The residents say that if you want to find someone, go to church on Sunday.

The Alfama district is not only the reminder of the Moorish occupation it is also a reminder of the great earthquake in 1147. The earthquake devastated the whole of Lisbon except the Alfama, and some believed it to be a miracle.

Alfama is within the city of Lisbon complete with a church, tiny squares, little stores with daily staples and commodities, and maze-like narrow streets. 

We walked through the labyrinth of narrow streets between apartments of several floors. The buildings are so close to one another that neighbors could figuratively shake hands with each other by the windows. 

Although some of the homes are now dilapidated, the vigor and enthusiasm of the residents have not waned as evidenced by the pots of flowers adorning their wrought-iron balconies, or the laundry drying in clothes line between the apartments or on the balcony railings, or the caged birds in their windows. Our tour guide said, this is where the poor live– according to European standard – the rent being as low as 30Euros a month. Because of the low rent and the availability of staples and commodities within the area and the strong sense of community, the people do not have the desire to move out of the district. Some have lived all their lives here. There are no elevators and the old ones living in the higher stories are saved from going up and coming down to buy their groceries by having someone hoist their commodities in baskets up to their apartments. Neighbors help one another. Although some of the buildings are in ruin, most of the tiles on the walls that adorned them remain. Dulce then pointed to the outer walls of the apartments and to the tiles that originally paved

 the streets.

After walking, going uphill, and downhill (with the fear of someone spitting from the upper floor windows), we left Alfama for the other sites such as the Monument of Discoveries—also called the Portuguese expedition monument—the Tower of Belem and the Heironymite Monastery.