News

My mother can't sing really. None of us can, in our little clan. But my mother likes to sing now and then, or as she says, “I'll talk you a song.”

When I was young and foolish, a silly teenager in Dublin, seeing girls on the sly, she would look at me knowingly and sing a bit from Down by the Sally Gardens: “She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree …” And I'd know my mother knew, as mothers always do.

A few years ago, though, I fell in love and never told my mother. I fell in love with the city of Lisbon.

How do I love it? Oh, I can count the ways: Lisbon, city of stone and soccer; city of cafés and conviviality; city of early-morning mist on the yawning mouth of the river Tagus; city of luscious pastries and ambrosial port wine; city of breathtaking light at noon and bewitching laughter at night; city of broad avenues and tiny cobbled streets; city of ancient trams gliding upward and upward into the steep hills that surround the downtown; city of churches and fado bars; city of sweet and pleasant people.

My mother's 70th birthday was in December and I decided to make it special for her. I could have gone home for a party, showering her with gifts. But I didn't. I took my mother and father to Lisbon.

When I was a boy, my mother and father took me abroad, out of Ireland, for the first time. In those days, among people like us, nobody had much money. Hardly anybody left Ireland for a vacation. But my parents and their neighbours banded together and paid in weekly instalments for a package vacation in Italy.

The trip was for the adults and to take place in September, in the cheaper off-season. In August, the teachers went on strike and the start of the school year was delayed by weeks. Arrangements had been made for a cousin to take care of my sister and me. Then, one day, my mother told me that my sister and I would join them on the trip to Italy.

God knows how they did it. But they did and we went – a few days in Rome and a few days in Rimini. We were the only children with the group.

I've never forgotten it. Not just Italy through a 12-year-old's eyes, but the gesture my parents made. And my mother's pleasure in taking us there.

I thought long about where my mother might enjoy herself in December. My mother's 70th year had not been an easy one. She has had surgery twice on her legs, and was briefly made immobile twice by it. One of her brothers died. She needed fun, relaxation and escape.

Over the years, my parents have travelled often. They have been to Canada numerous times, to Italy several times, to France, Austria, Spain and Denmark. They had never been to Portugal. It was time to share my love of Lisbon.

As soon as my parents arrived and we checked in at our hotel, I knew I had made the right decision.

I had chosen the Sofitel Hotel, part of the luxury French chain, famous for its comfortable beds. I had studied the Sofitel website and it promised personalized service. So I sent an e-mail in advance, explaining that it was my mother's 70th birthday and asking if a card and gift could be put in her room.

This simple request brought an outpouring of Portuguese hospitality and outstanding service. I heard from the manager of the Sofitel Lisbon, then the deputy manager, then the concierge. For a fee of $75, my mother would get the VIP gift package. I said fine, go ahead.

When we arrived, the manager appeared in the lobby to personally greet my mother, wish her a happy birthday and welcome her to Lisbon. We were shown to my parents' room by an entire team of hotel staff.

Unknown to me, in honour of my mother's birthday, the manager had also upgraded the room to a suite. There was a bottle of port, a box of chocolates, a fado CD, a book about Lisbon and a charming card from the manager. There were plates of pastries and fruit. My mother was delighted, beaming with pleasure.

We set off on a tour of Lisbon, in the warmth of 18 degrees and sunshine. It stayed that way for the entire trip. From an open-top bus, we saw the sights – the Avenida Da Liberdade, the wide, tree-lined main approach to the downtown, and the Jeronimos Monastery and Belem Tower, two magnificent monuments to Lisbon's ancient past as the city of navigators and explorers. We stopped in Belem, the area just east of the downtown riverside, and went for pastries and beer.

I was taking a chance with this stop, but I had received a tip from a man who installed new windows on my house in Toronto a few weeks before. He was Portuguese and his wife was from Lisbon. He recommended the Antiga Confeitaria De Belem. “Have the custard tarts with cold beer,” he said. We did.

The café, which has existed on the same site since the 1830s, produces thousands of custard tarts a day, every day. A warren of ancient, tiled rooms, each filled with locals consuming pastries, it is one of the great cafés of the world. We ordered a plate of tarts and they came hot from the oven – you can see the kitchen, the cooks and the ovens if you wander through – and, sure enough, a cold beer was the perfect accompaniment.

My mother was transfixed by the sight of three teenage guys at the table beside us, also consuming hot custard tarts and beer. Within hours of arriving, she had been transported into the life of Lisbon and she was loving it.

Over the next few days, we moseyed at a gentle pace on the distinctive mosaic pavements of downtown Lisbon. We took a funicular – the ancient trams that quickly climb the steep hills – to the Bairro Alto district, wandered the museum in the ruins of the medieval Carmo Convent – almost destroyed in the earthquake that devastated Lisbon in 1755 – and had a glass of port in the bar at the top of the Santa Justa Lift, admiring the magnificent view of the city and the Tagus.

We took a tram ride through the Alfama district, all winding, narrow cobbled streets, and watched people dodge our tram in the slender alleys as young boys clung to the back railing, hitching a ride for a few streets. We ate in churrascaria chicken restaurants, heard the melancholy fado being sung, shopped for shoes and ate more pastries than was probably good for us, but walked it off.

One day, in the Baixa, the old pedestrian-only shopping area, a passing man nodded hello to my mother. She was taken aback and then recognized him. It was the doorman from the Sofitel, out Christmas shopping with his wife and children. He came over and, with grave courtesy, asked my mother how she was enjoying Lisbon.

Later that day, my mother bought a ticket for the Euro Millions lottery, which obsesses all European Union citizens with its enormous prizes. When she got back to Ireland, she found she had won $35 – but couldn't cash a ticket bought in Portugal. She mailed it to the Sofitel and asked that it be given to the doorman who had been so courteous and hospitable to her.

Me, I eventually took my mother and father to the airport as they reluctantly left Lisbon for Dublin. When I checked out of the Sofitel, the lady concierge asked if my mother had enjoyed her birthday trip.

I said she had, most definitely. She replied, “We must take care of those who raised us and loved us, while they are still alive. We are lucky if we can do that.” And I agreed with her, not saying but knowing that Lisbon was the perfect place to let my mother take it easy at 70 and to know she is loved.

My mother still can't sing, but she's busy talking up the pleasures of Lisbon.

John Doyle is The Globe and Mail's television critic. He lives

in Toronto.