Fado Tour

 

Fado means destiny, fate. It's characterized by heartfelt tunes and lyrics infused with a sense of fatefulness and longing to which we use the word saudade to characterize it. Besides attending a Fado concert, you'll be taken on a 30 minute walking tour through the alleys of Mouraria and Alfama, where this musical genre was born. 

The most common explanation is that it comes from the songs of the Moors, which kept living on the slums of Lisbon even after the Christian take-over during medieval time. The sadness and melancholy of those songs, so common in Fado, are a good basis to explain the rhythms of Fado itself. For it's uniqueness and emotion that overtakes language and nationality, Fado was inscribed by UNESCO on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in November 2011, and it's a must do in Lisbon to understand Portuguese way of life.