I have heard this phrase hundreds of times. The Portuguese capital has been on everyone’s lips lately. Lisbon is talked about in London, compared to Berlin and even across the pond they say that Lisbon is the new California, one of the coolest cities in Europe.
Last year 2017 was a great year for Portugal: Portugal won Eurovision, Benfica won the football league… the Pope visited Fatima… and even Madonna has decided to move to Lisbon. But, why? Where does this success come from? Why so much interest in this long-forgotten capital of Portugal?
Lisbon is a cosmopolitan, colourful and dazzling city for the visitor. A city that bewitches and stops time between its pavements and in the squares that raise its monuments, grandiose and spectacular. The streets of Lisbon, with their pavements full of art in the form of drawings and geometric shapes, created by the wise masters of the calçeteiros, envelop the passer-by in their magic.
At the same time it is a small city, feasible to get to know in a couple of days. Still, despite the tourism, it retains a local essence that is very reminiscent of life in a big town… and that makes it different from other European cities that sometimes seem to have cloned themselves from each other. If you stroll through the narrow streets of the oldest neighbourhoods such as Alfama or Mouraría, you can still see how the locals take the tables out of their houses to eat in the street, the grandmothers talking from window to window, the colourful sheets and clothes hanging on the facades… or the smell of freshly made green broth that transports you to a village or a hamlet… It’s like travelling back in time.
In spite of the innumerable alleys that entangle its skin, the city of Lisbon has qualities that other cities crave: attractiveness, colour, light, brightness, a relatively slow pace and a special multiculturalism. People from India, Africa, Brazil and the Far East adorn its streets and captivate the visitor with their exotic colours, their rich smells that mingle with the magic of the breeze and their fascinating artistic manifestations. It is a city open to the world. Its old harbour estuary has brought people from all over the world to this beautiful city, which enriches its inhabitants and fills them with tolerance and respect.
Lisbon is waiting for you… don’t be late!
