A Portuguese curiosity

An extra mid-week post today...

I thought I'd put up a quick explanation of a very idiosyncratic quirk of life in Lisbon. I'd guess that most people in the UK, as well as my other regular readers, won't have heard about this before.

At the door of many apartment buildings in Lisbon there's a notice saying something like 'Feche a Porta' (fetch the port). As an example, here's a photo of the sign on my own building's door.

Fetch the port, please (SFF = se faz favor)

This is because in Lisbon there's a very well-developed system for port deliveries. Just like in the UK the milkman will deliver your milk every day, in Lisbon there are Porteiros who deliver port to their customers' addresses every week. Obviously not everyone takes advantage of this system, but it seems to work really well. The notices are simply there to remind anyone going out of or coming into the building to bring the port inside on the day it's been delivered.

There are even some more creative versions of these ubiquitous signs online, such as:

Sourced here

Now... I'd best go and see if anyone's left some port (vinho do Porto) on my front doorstep this morning...

Happy 1st April everyone! And don't forget to close the door on your way out.