Day 54. Santarem

День 54. Сантарей

Santarem is a strange city. Whether its inhabitants are out in the streets or in their houses, it always seems closed. There does not seem to be any link between the old town and the new neighborhoods: each of them is in its own place, turning its back on the other. Once again, the traveler admits this in his personal view, but the facts – or rather the lack of them – confirm that it’s true: nothing can happen in Santarem. It’s like another Sleeping Beauty castle, without the sleeping beauty. But Santarem has the Portas do Sol to open out the view. Or should have, the traveler reflects. Because to him, the wonderful panorama, the view over the river and the fields only serve to increase the feeling of isolation, of distance, almost of absence that Santarem conveys. (© J. Saramago "Journey to Portugal")
"... the traveler comes face to face with the best that Santarem has to offer, and has laboriously restored: the convent of St Francis. Or to be more precise: what’s left of it. It is a ruin: the pulverized remains of a giant’s body that is searching desperately to put itself together again, and keeps finding bits and pieces of other giants: fragments here and there, chunks of wall, bits of columns, fallen capitals, some of them Gothic, others Manueline, still others from the Renaissance. … This chaotic jumble conveys to the traveler an unheard story of calculated forms, of spiritual force which does not seek to leave the earth… In the opinion of the traveler – and when he has an opinion, he says so – this ruin should only be restored sufficiently to ensure it is conserved. It is and should stay a ruin. Ruins are always more eloquent that any restored building. … The present has more than enough places in which to speak to the future. This is the voice of the past." (© J. Saramago "Journey to Portugal")

На окраине Сантарея за городской стеной сохранился средневековый фонтан XIV века. Подобный тому, который странница обнаружила на окраине Сан-Джиминьяно в Тоскане в прошлом году.