Fresh air, exercise, culture and good living

We took a bus this morning to the Serralves park and museum.  We didn’t hang around for long indoors, since the weather was fine, but did look quickly round an exhibition of Mapplethorpe photographs.  Incredibly skilled photographer, but his predilection for photographing erections of the black persuasion and fists up people’s bums rather detracted from the beauty of, for example, his photographs of flowers.  (One guess as to what he died of at 43.). The gardens are superb, and currently include a few pieces by Anish Kapoor, equally startling sometimes, but much less distasteful than Mapplethorpe’s stuff.  Unfortunately, the rose garden has been completely cleared, and there is nothing between the box hedges other than plastic sheeting.  We took a quick look at the house, which is a fine Art Deco pile, but rather under-exploited, we thought.  Annie and I went inside the Anish Kapoor ‘Descent into Limbo’ piece.  It is a cubic building, built over a spherical 3.3 metre diameter void, with a 1.5 metre opening at the top, level with the floor.  The inside is painted in a very dark blue pigment to which Kapoor has bought the rights. We had to flash ID and sign lengthy disclaimers before we went in, which was partly to bolster Kapoor’s wish to create an air of menace and suspense.  Well, it was impressive in its way, partly thanks to a very knowledgeable guide.  The exhibition ends in January, and the sculptures will be demolished.  Seems kinda wasteful, innit?

I wonder whether the museum trustees and the public transport system have had a falling out.  The only bus stops remotely near the museum are 5-10 minutes’ walk away, and the only route serving it doesn’t serve the centre of town.  The more exercise, the merrier, I suppose, but the old knees are protesting a bit.  We took a lengthy bus ride down to the Bolhão terminus, and legged it thence to the wonderful Majestic Café for lunch.  I had emailed them in my last worst Portuguese to ask to book a table, but received no answer.  The charming maître d’ Mr Moreira soon had us seated nevertheless, and we enjoyed our steak/magrets, Alvarinho and pasteis de nata in the exuberant Belle Époque surroundings of the café.

Unsurprisingly, Annie and Martyn have retired for siestas while I sit and scribble, looking out on the ever-changing view of the Atlantic breaking on the rocks across the road.  We love it here.