From Portugal to Brazil (and back again)

It's a bit of a shock to the system to be back in cold, rainy London after two glorious weeks in sunny Brazil. And unfortunately I mean that literally. Foolishly I thought I could get away with not bringing a jacket, and was forced to shiver my way home from the airport Tuesday in just a jumper. Now, of course, I have a cold.

It was an amazing trip, and really interesting - especially in the way we bookended it with some time in Portugal. We got a really cheap flight to Brazil with TAP, Portugal's national airline, but it required a 24 hour stopover in Porto on the way there and another stopover in Lisbon on the way back. So it was a little colonial recreation, if you will. This theme for the trip was heightened by the fact that the first port of call was Salvador, the capital of Brazil during the colonial period. The city is billed as having the largest collection of colonial architecture in Latin America, and it didn't disappoint.

Rebirth in Lisbon

When in Lisbon, there are two key dates that stay on the mind: 1755 and 1974.

During a visit I made to the city last weekend, these two pivotal turning points constantly came up. They were both times of regeneration, of a culture and a city redefining itself after a dramatic upheaval. And they both speak to the remarkable ability for societies to recover and rebuild.

In 1755 Lisbon suffered a massive earthquake followed by a tidal wave and fire that completely razed the city and killed 15,000 people. In 1974, a military coup was able to finally wrest power from a dictatorship that ruled Portugal with an iron fist for more than four decades.