Refuges of the Past

"In the gardens there are no crystals / For except in noble halls / Crystals are worth no more / Than the clay of the wine jug."

To look today at paved roads where there were once fields and orchards. To smell in our stone squares the wheat of the fields, the olive trees and vegetables, the cattle, the pasture and the festivals. To think back to that time of social gatherings in the city's vegetable gardens and ask, alfacinhas that we are: Lisbon, green city, where are your fields, your vineyards, your merrymaking, your ribaldry and aprons?

Actress/narrator Ana Sofia Paiva and singer/songwriter Marco Oliveira propose a journey of stories and legends through the reading of popular tales, life stories, passages, poems and facts about Lisbon, with musical interludes connected to the roots of urban song and the sound environment of the city's daily life. Each chapter imaginatively presents a historical period of the city.

By Ana Sofia Paiva (actress and narrator) and Marco Oliveira (singer/songwriter)