The tiles here are a separate language. Every building speaks a different pattern. Spent today just photographing door frames and floor mosaics. An old woman told me her apartment is in a palace from the 1700s and showed me the original painted ceiling (peeling now, but still magnificent).
She didn’t speak English. I didn’t speak Portuguese. We had tea instead. Communication doesn’t always need words — sometimes a shared cup and a smile are more eloquent than any phrase book.
Heard fado music in a restaurant in Alfama. Someone told me it’s all about longing and loss — saudade. A woman in black sang about the sea and everyone went very still. I understood the emotion more than the words, which felt right somehow.