Why a Booktrail?
2000s – For this line in particular – Gregorius stayed in the second-hand bookshop a long time. Getting to know the city through the books in it – he had always done that. Enough said!
Night Train To Lisbon
What you need to know before your trail
Raimund teaches Latin at a Swiss college and one day meets a mysterious Portuguese woman and decides to abandon his life and start a new one.
He takes the night train to Lisbon where he reads a book by a (fictional) Portuguese doctor and writer Amadeu de Prado. In it the author examines issues of loneliness, mortality, friendship and love – Raimund is intrigued.
His thirst for knowledge take him all over the city of Lisbon, as he speaks to those who were entangled in Prado’s life. Gradually, the picture of an extraordinary man emerges—a doctor and poet who rebelled against Salazar’s dictatorship.
Travel Guide
Raimund Gregorius is a teacher at a Swiss school in modern day Bern and an expert in ancient languages (Greek, Latin and Hebrew).
When he gets to Lisbon, his research into the writer Prado takes him all over Lisbon and to places such as Cemiterio dos Prazeres – literally the Cemetery of Pleasures – which is perhaps a strange name for a cemetery but it is a fascinating place to visit. It is like a mini city within a city with streets, small tomb ‘houses’ and larger tombs which hold the remains of the rich and famous.
Running away to Lisbon on a whim is the start of a journey of soul searching and a puzzle which grows as you follow Gregorius around Lisbon. He sees the city via its language and the link between how you look at yourself and how you look at the world. A journey of self discovery of sorts with an exploration of the writing of Prado – the character who Gregorious is looking for.
This is not only a journey of a city and a writer but of language and culture as well.
Where Next?
