Largo de São Rafael
Why is it significant?
On one side of this little Alfama square rises a chunky, square stone tower, rough and blind, attached to the houses around it as if they had grown out of it. It is a piece of the Cerca Moura, the wall that protected Lisbon in Moorish times, and it has been standing here for about a thousand years.
Key Facts
| Place | Largo de São Rafael |
|---|---|
| Address | Largo de São Rafael, 1100-528 Lisboa, Portugal |
| Geo Coordinates | 38.71050, -9.12930 |
| Part of Walk | Mouraria, Cradle of Fado: From Maria Severa to Amália in Lisbon |
| Generated | Generated |
On one side of this little Alfama square rises a chunky, square stone tower, rough and blind, attached to the houses around it as if they had grown out of it. It is a piece of the Cerca Moura, the wall that protected Lisbon in Moorish times, and it has been standing here for about a thousand years.
Before 1147 this wall enclosed the Muslim city, al-Ushbuna, running from the castle down to the river. Alfama, whose name probably comes from the Arabic for baths or springs, was inside or just outside it. After the conquest the Moors who stayed were sent to Mouraria, where we started... and so in a sense this tower is the other bookend of our walk.
Look at the street that leaves the square, Rua da Judiaria. This was the edge of the Jewish quarter of Alfama, one of the Jewish communities of medieval Lisbon, until the decree of 1496 forced Jews to convert or leave. In 1506 a massacre of New Christians shook the city. Alfama, like Mouraria, carries the memory of minorities who were here first.
And now we are in the other great fado neighbourhood. Alfama is the fado of the river, of fishermen, of sailors' wives and stevedores. Built on solid rock, it came through the 1755 earthquake better than most of the city, which is why this tangle of medieval lanes survives at all. In those lanes the tradition of fado vadio still lives on in small taverns, where a neighbour or a waiter may stand up between two plates of food and sing.
Listen for it in the evening, drifting out of a doorway, a single voice and two guitars, and then the applause of a dozen people in a room the size of a kitchen. Now climb a little higher, north through the lanes, about two hundred metres, to the terrace of Santo Estêvão, where Alfama celebrates its saints.