Portugal celebrates Liberty Day on April 25th. It’s a national holiday marking the military coup of 1974 and democracy and civil liberties for the Portuguese. Celebrations begin at dawn when the President, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, and Prime Minister, António Luís Santos da Costa, officially start the day.
“The revolution had a deep impact on Portuguese life. Many of those who lived through it participate in celebration ceremonies. On this day, it’s common to wear carnations on the lapel. Carnations became the symbol of the revolution when on the day of the revolution a flower vendor decided to give carnations away to show support. While marching through the streets, the military put the carnations in their gun barrels as a symbol of their peaceful intentions.”
In the Portuguese Parliament, a solemn session is held with “interventions from all the political parties and their representatives, followed by a speech from the Parliament President“. Then the Republic’s President delivers a speech.
Tonight, there’s a musical celebration in the park across the street from my apartment. The musicians are quite good and have a 1960s folk music sound – like The Kingston Trio or Peter Paul & Mary – if anyone remembers them…. There are also some female Fado singers. All songs are in Portuguese.
I had an interesting outing in Belem earlier today. It’s the more modern part of Lisbon. It was a little too far to walk – about 5 miles each way – so I took the tram one way and the bus back. Using public transportation turned into a long, drawn-out process. I’m not sure how the journey could have been shorter as every vehicle on the road came to a screeching halt in the gridlock, and the subway didn’t reach my destination. Despite the long uncomfortable wait, glad I spent time in Belem.
Some miscellaneous photos from the day are attached. I’m leaving Lisbon tomorrow morning for 5 days in the Azores. More posts later….
All of the photos are great but I particularly love that photo of the accordionist. Enjoy the next part of the trip.
Yes, humans like photos of humans but when traveling solo, photos are a little tricky – both taking others and getting ones of yourself taken. Sometimes people in day trip groups I join ask if I want them to take a photo of me – that’s nice. When it comes to just taking shots of interesting faces – and there are TONS of them – that’s another issue. The accordion player had his hat out for donations. He’d been playing all day and was really tired. I gave him 5 Euros and got him just before he fell asleep! :o) Would love to have an entire blog post with nothing but faces, but you have to be careful. It’s best to ask first rather than have someone come after you – have had that happen and it was scary….
You are so right. I still feel very bad about taking a photo of a cute kid in China. Mum was okay, but dad came into it a bit later and wasn’t happy. These days, I won’t even post a photo of the grand kids without asking the parents first.