'The Wonderful Jazz Café just before the station on the right'

Saudade, if you look it up from the dictionary, means Nostalgia in English.
In the Portuguese dictionary the word is explained as 'sadness caused by missing someone or something' AND as 'greetings'. The word includes both happiness and sadness, a longing for.

Saudade, the Life and Art of Portuguese People, is a coffee-place, a tea room, a place to gather to listen to music. For me, O Saudade is one of the only places where you can sit with your book, newspaper or laptop, enjoying a cup of coffee and a long conversation with your best friend and beautiful cakes, and not be harassed. It is what one of our clients described as 'The Wonderful Jazz Café just before the Station on the Right'.

O Saudade opened at the end of June 2009. The first week of July we already had two nice comments about in our Guest to Guest book. The truth is, it gained immediate popularity. Mary and João have lovingly turned one of the original 5 cheese cake factories of Sintra, Mathilde, into a popular place to have breakfast, lunch or 'lanche' (=afternoon snack). There is live music, mostly jazz, but also fados, a few times a month on the weekend evenings. It is probably the only place where the original tanks made of stone where the preservation of fresh cheese was done in salt water are still conserved, as the other factories have been modernized. Mathilde was not, as it stopped its production in 1974.

But the space has been rediscovered: exhibitions of local /Portuguese art and handicrafts (quilts, silver work etc) take place in the recuperated spaces - the sofa-scene of the picture is in the old oven area, the tiles have been conserved, the tables and chairs are local antiques. The charm of the place are the little corners where you can almost feel like you were by yourself even in a crowded café, the feel of being in someone's home, as if you recognized the tables and chairs... The scones and green tea are my daughter's favorites, I like the lemon meringue pie, my niece is crazy for the chocolate cake; and many of our clients enjoy light lunches there (4-7€). Also worth mentioning is the small table for children, with games. And the wonderful stucco ceilings. And, and, and.... O Saudade is convenient to the station and only 10 minutes walk from Casa do Valle.

So why the name Saudade? Makes sense. Missing the calmer times from before in the hectic life of today? Appreciating the good things in life? Enjoying it while there and wishing your loved ones were there, too? Remembering and appreciating the past while bringing some of it to the present? Or: All of the above!