Talking Location With… JJ Marsh

Reblogged from TripFiction.com – the right book for the right place at the right time.

Sometimes you find yourself in the right place at the right time.

For me, it was Portugal in 1991.

A country of history and culture, discovery and adventure, with a personality all its own.

The cities, the people, the food, the music (overlooking that year’s particular obsession with Bryan Adams), the SuperBock, the landscape,and the light.

Oh, that light.

Porto was my home for four happy years, with a six-month interlude in Lisbon. Young, adventurous and enthusiastic, I learnt the language and went exploring. Each place boasts its own delights:

Porto works, Lisbon plays.

Coimbra sings, Braga prays.

Certain memories are indelible:

A psychedelic sunset behind a student choir in Coimbra.

Falling off the Castelo do São Jorge in Lisbon.

A frisky old goat in Aveiro who tried to grope me from his zimmerframe.

Bom Jesus in Braga, a religious pilgrimage site to scare a sinner.

The unspoilt verdant vistas of Gerês, the natural park of the north.

And Porto. With its wine, sardines, songs, football matches and the festival of São João, where the population spills onto the streets to laugh and dance and hit each other on the head with squeaky hammers.

Portugal pulls me back, again and again, always one of my special places. Hence choosing it as the location for Bad Apples, the last in The Beatrice Stubbs Series.

Why? Well…

There’s an atmosphere, tangible as soon as you get off the plane/train. You’re impatient to dive in. All your senses come alive.

Meander through the streets, absorbing the cobbled pavements, crumbling walls, rusting balconies and that patina of aged wood and cracked leather inside the rattling trams.

Inhale the scent of manjericão or sweet basil, a waft of roasting chestnuts and the startling pungency of dried salted cod.

Eat fresh seafood, drink effervescent white wine (vinho verde) or aged tawny port and relish the coffee at any time of day.

Wander into a café. Listen to commentators and clientele yelling about the football. Or slip into a shadowy fado bar to hear the emotional laments of the heartbroken women of a seafaring nation.

Feast your eyes on the fruit market, its riot of colour reflected in lines of washing hung from apartment windows.

Stop and stare at the epic tales depicted in the azuleijo tiles on all kinds of public buildings.

Watch the leaves turn the same shade as the rooftops softened in November sunlight.

Gaze at the waves rolling in and out, each a promise and a threat.

Leave the traffic and the city and hike up the river or into the national parks.

Explore Gerês or the undiscovered glory of the Alentejo or simply stagger, slack-jawed around Sintra and learn the meaning of green.

The Portuguese are legendary explorers while the joys of their own country seem under-appreciated by the rest of Europe.

That’s fine with me.

Let’s keep it our little secret.

Writer, journalist, teacher, actor, director and cultural trainer, Jill has lived and worked all over Europe.
Now based in Switzerland, Jill is a founder member of Triskele Books, European correspondent for Words with JAM magazine, co-edits Swiss literary hub The Woolf and is a reviewer for Bookmuse.
Author of the Beatrice Stubbs series: Behind Closed Doors, Raw Material, Tread Softly, Cold Pressed, Human Rites  and Bad Apples.
Short-story collection Appearances Greeting a Point of View is available in English, Spanish and Portuguese.