Read "Journey to Portugal" by José Saramago online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Looking again at the map, the traveller decided: "I'll start from here. " Here is Matosinhos. Poor Antonio Nobre, should he get lost here, en route to Leca. He'd die of anguish before the tuberculosis got him, just from surveying its factory chimneys, overwhelmed by their noise: even the traveller felt confused and concerned at his bustling surroundings. When all's said and done, we have only ourselves to blame in attempting to read reality in books which can only register a very different order of reliability. There are many variations on the theme of sebastianismo6 and this is among the most insidious. The traveller vows not to disregard the warning.
Once in Matosinhos, you have to go and see the church of Bom Jesus and the Quinta do Viso. But the traveller, who can't go everywhere, remained before the Nasoni, a perfect feat of architecture, of a broadly horizontal construction. Nasoni himself is wholly Italianate, but he understood the mysteries of Lusitanian granite which give it space on which to rest our eyes, alternating its dark granite tones with the chalkiness of the plaster. It is a lesson forgotten by latterday adulterators and the manufacturers of modern nightmares. The traveller is well aware that now it costs an unattainable fortune to build houses from granite, but given what one can and cannot achieve in balancing the books there should still be a solution compatible with an architectural tradition rather than venturing into its systematic assassination. It was horrific.