Perhaps the experience of Portugal can be expressed only through music; since here everything is melody, intermediate tone, subtle yet decisive nuances... R. Schneider, Portugal: travel diary With my journey through Portuguese music and poetry I put forward again this same journey which Reinhold Schneider made in the Thirties across the culture, scenery and soul of this country... Arrigo Cappelletti ... A very pleasant feeling of all this is still there, rhythm, food , wine, climate, music, people, the azulejos everywhere... No one looks particularly unhappy. Nor particularly happy, in actual fact. But you get the impression that here the quality of life, or life simply, is preserved. (from my travel notebook, 26 february 2000)

I caress my soul, I sing for it. It has gone over the sea while I was on the shore. I could do nothing but look. I sing something I don’t know well I sing far away elsewhere now I sing all the borders nearby I sing alone and I sing all together I sing memories that I don’t know fury of wind frenzy hope I sing the people who like me sing I sing a resonance I sing a reflection of a thousand words to keep what is gone to console myself for completeness I sing the secret and the openness I sing life somebody listens sings in turn and makes somebody sing I sing to myself to make myself heard I sing to provoke I sing and lament I rock slowness the shade the eyelids the subdued voice I sing I invent myself to hold a dialogue looking at the sea I sing and hearing myself I know I exist I mock myself and I heal myself I sing writing I sing playing with gaiety and with sorrow fragile white melancholy I sing my other self that I miss small boat my soul the ocean caught you took you away Mara Cantoni, from the booklet of Terras do Risco