today our taxi drivers were very quiet. then again, martina wasn't with us at that time and she's so talkative she must've brought it out of the ones we had yesterday. our first driver yesterday was an older man. he was quiet and polite, looked like the older man from "up" and looked like he missed his wife very much, wherever she was, if she existed.
he drove fast and when we asked him to take us to castelo sao jorge, he offered to take us somewhere with a better view. he drove us up a very narrow, winding hill and talked about how this was portgual's "old world." he seemed to know it well; maybe he was from here, maybe this was where he met his wife. he told us about an earthquake that hit in the 1700s and caused the whole hill to crumble. they rebuilt it and it was a beautiful example of european architecture. now, it's crumbling again, but this time he fears that no one really cares to rebuild it.
we get to the top and see a view of what seems, to me, a view of all of portugal, even above the castle that we originally planned to visit. the hill is named after a saint, none of us can remember her name now. he offered to wait to drive us down because it was hard to catch a cab on the hill. he took photos for us. he gave us more history on the way down. he'd stop the car and ask me if i wanted to hop out and take a picture. he called me "filha," daughter. he could tell that i liked photography.
when we reached the bottom of the hill he asked where we were going next. we described what we knew of it. "ah, the expo," he said. he didn't know much about it, it was all modernized he said. he dropped us off and left his number with us - "call me if you want a trip through history."
 |
| [ the view from the hill ] |
 |
| [ miradouro da senhora do monte ] |
 |
| [ lisbon ] |
 |
| [ taxista ] |
No comments:
Post a Comment