Impressions of Portugal, The Chiado

The child that laughs in the street,
The song one hears by chance,
The absurd picture, the naked statue,
Kindness without any limit –

All this exceeds the logic
Imposed on things by reason,
And it all has something of love,
Even if this love can’t speak.

—Fernando Pessoa, 4 October 1934

A nice thing about settling in for a few days in one location is the chance to poke around at leisure in the neighborhood, which for us was The Chiado in Lisbon. I hadn’t connected all the dots beforehand, so a sense of serendipity accompanied our realization that the Café A Brasileira—a well-known Fernando Pessoa haunt—was nearby.