Portugal

How has the weather been acting like at your part of the world lately? I thought the situation here couldn't be any worse - it's been raining all day, the sky has been grey and dark all day with no sunshine, but then I found a Latvian card in my mailbox saying that it was -21 degrees Celsius n Riga on Saturday, so I learnt how happy I should be in fact.

Anyway, the postcard above reached me just today and it's one of the very few cards that I've got throughout History RR so far. It comes from the capital of Portugal, as you may see, and it represents a night of Fado in Alfama (Lisbon) back in 50s.  What's fado? Fado is a is a music genre which can be traced to the 1820s in Portugal, but probably with much earlier origins. In popular belief, fado is a form of music characterized by mournful tunes and lyrics, often about the sea or the life of the poor, and infused with a characteristic sentiment of resignation, fatefulness and melancholia.

The word Fado itself comes from the Latin word fatum, from which the English word fate also originates. The word is linked to the music genre itself and, although both meanings are approximately the same in the two languages, Portuguese speakers seldom utilize the word fado referring to destiny or fate.

On November 27, 2011, Fado was inscribed in the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Lists.

A HUUUGE thank to Tanea for this interesting card with even more interesting story and a stamp representing  a bus from the 60s that was used in Porto.