Harry Potter and his Portugal connections

You start up the red staircase with the carved wood handrails, but then it splits and heads off in a different direction, and then splits again. Harry Potter fans might think they’re on the moving staircases at Hogwarts but, in reality, they’re in a stunning bookstore in Porto, Portugal. Read more about Harry Potter and his Portugal connections.

Even for people who’ve (gasp) never heard of the wizard and his magical world, Livraria Lello bookstore is a huge tourist attraction for its sheer beauty and marvellous book collections. But Potter fans are immediately transported to Hogwarts or to Flourish and Blotts, the famous bookstore in Diagon Alley.

Although J.K. Rowling has never confirmed it, it’s not a stretch of the imagination to believe the bookstore inspired some of the settings in the seven-part Harry Potter series.

Rowling’s website said she began writing the first Potter story in Portugal. “Taking her notes with her, she moved to northern Portugal [in 1991] to teach English as a foreign language, married Jorge Arantes in 1992 and had a daughter, Jessica, in 1993. When the marriage ended later that year, she returned to the UK to live in Edinburgh, with Jessica and a suitcase containing the first three chapters of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.”

Lello, in a short history called The World’s Most Beautiful Bookshop, said she visited often. “As the author was a frequent visitor of the bookshop, many say that much of Livraria Lello can be found between the lines and in the descriptions of the Harry Potter books, from the restless stairs of Hogwarts leading pupils to places they do not want to go, to the Flourish and Blotts bookshop for wizards.”

The only Portuguese reference that Rowling has confirmed is the name Salazar – Portuguese dictator Antonio de Oliveira Salazar ruled the country from 1932 to 1968. She created the character Salazar Slytherin, who founded Slytherin House at Hogwarts. The parallels are interesting. Slytherin House is not supposed to be entirely evil but most believe it is. Likewise, Salazar still has some supporters in Portugal today, despite his heavy hand in suppressing dissent.

But there are other possible Potter parallels in Portugal.

Most notable are Portugal’s university students, who wear long black capes after they’ve completed their first year. They also wear ties, white shirts and black jackets; women wear a black skirt while men wear black pants. The uniform is strikingly like the Hogwarts uniform, minus the coloured house crests.  

My head swivelled with excitement the first time we saw black-cloaked students, in the city of Coimbra. They were marching and chanting – in Portuguese, of course, so we didn’t know what they were saying. But it seemed in good fun and was at the start of a party weekend – which I can confirm went on to the wee hours. However, being a Potter fan myself, I forgave them for their exuberance at 2 a.m.

King Joāo’s Library at the University of Coimbra is another Portuguese magnet for book lovers, so it seems likely that Rowling would have visited and been inspired to create the scene where Harry sneaks in to the restricted section of the Hogwarts library at night under the Invisibility Cloak. Both libraries feature endless shelves of large old dusty tomes.

King Joāo’s Library is so popular that you must buy timed-entry tickets well ahead (but you can spend your waiting time exploring the rest of the university, which was founded in 1290). As I followed the line into the library, the young woman ahead of me squealed with delight when she stepped through the doorway, and I almost did the same. It’s overwhelming: two floors containing 40,000 books, exquisite woodwork, reading tables of exotic woods, gold leaf everywhere, three trompe l’oeil paintings on the ceiling, and moveable ladders that can be tucked away between the shelves. We didn’t catch sight of the resident bats, who eat the insects that could damage books.

If I was a student at that university, I would definitely try to sneak in to the library at night, even though I might end up in the Academic Prison in the basement. Yes, there’s an Academic Prison! All that remains are two narrow cells and a winding staircase.

“Despite being incarcerated, students were accompanied to their classes in the morning by the Royal Academic Guard, and returned to the prison at the end of the day,” said an information sheet.

I love the concept of prison for plagiarists. Perhaps Rowling was inspired to write about the strange punishments at Hogwarts, such as when words are seared onto Harry’s hand.  

Other places around Porto are said to have possibly inspired Rowling. However, some of them are quite general and I can’t help but feel she could have equally been inspired by similar places in Britain, where there are also cafés, castles, gothic arches, cloisters, cathedrals, winged dragon statues, and church towers.

Apparently, she spent time writing in Porto’s Café Majestic, where the grand mirrors may have inspired the Mirror of Erised. But she is also said to have written in The Elephant House café in Edinburgh, Scotland. Let’s face it, writers spend lots of time in cafés so it’s hard to pinpoint the inspirational ones. Perhaps Starbucks will be acknowledged as a creative inspiration one day.

Of all the possible influences, Lello clearly stands out, if only because it has a relationship with Rowling. Exhibition cases in the store show several signed copies of Harry Potter books. And a room at the back is devoted to the Potter stories in various languages, plus brooms and candles hanging from the ceiling.  

My money is on Lello, black-robed students and Salazar as the major Harry Potter influences in Portugal.