A Few Impressions of Lisboa

Colors and Azulejos

         Colors abound in Lisboa. Blues, greens, pinks, purples.  Rain or shine, the city can never be accused of being bland.  

One of my favorite parts of being there was wandering around, taking in the colors, along with the patterns of the azulejos or tiles that cover the vast majority of the buildings.  The ubiquity and variety of this calling card of Portgual never ceased to astound me.  

Even the sidewalks are a mosaic of carefully placed stones, enough to keep you staring at your feet while you walk, and some of the plazas or praças feature even more ornate designs. 

Lisboa is its own place!

            Lisboa and Portugal more generally, definitely have their own vibe as compared to Spain.  Lisboa seemed much older to me than Madrid, more laid back, more colorful, and yet at the same time, a bit more melancholy while still friendly and warm.  Portuguese as a language was much harder to understand than I thought it would be, sounding more in the area of French and Italian than Spanish.  Portuguese is fairly easy to read if one has a knowledge of Spanish, however.

It was the first time I felt completely ignorant of the language in a foreign country, not even knowing how to say “thank you” at first (obrigado!).  Luckily, the vast majority of locals that we interacted with spoke very good English, even better than people in Spain.  When talking to a Spaniard about this, he claimed that one of the reasons for this is that they don’t dub movies and television in Portugal with Portuguese, whereas Spain is notorious for dubbing media since Franco and still to this day.  Still, it’s never a bad idea to learn a few phrases in the local tongue!

Lisboa is reminiscent of San Francisco!

            While Lisboa is quite different than Spain, it also reminded me a lot of another port city:  San Francisco!  Both cities feature nearly identical suspension bridges.  The Ponte 25 de Abril bears a striking resemblance to the Golden Gate Bridge, being both the same style and color of bridge, although the same company did not design them.

            Lisboa is also quite hilly, and the overall vibe is very relaxed.  Lisboa also has a tram system, dating back from the 1870s, and one of the best ways to see the city is to hop on the tram for a ride, especially if it’s raining!  They are akin to the cable cars of San Francisco, and evidently the first trams in Lisboa were imported from the USA.  

            At the same time, as a European capital, Lisboa’s streets are more winding and there’s history around every corner.  If San Francisco had 500 more years of history under its belt, it could then begin to have the quiet force of Lisboa, which was for a very long time, the last bastion of the Western world before its discovery of America. 

Nightlife aka Drinking in the Streets!

         One of the most apparent (and awesome) things about Lisboa is the complete lack of any sort of open container laws.  Even in Spain, the land of the botellón (even in the face of its current embattled legal situation), and especially in Madrid, bars are very strict about not taking alcoholic drinks out into the street.  Sure, you can buy cans of beer in the street pretty easily, but you better not take that gin tonic out of the bar. 

            In Lisboa, however, it was almost like you were encouraged to take your drink out to the streets.  When we went out in Bairro Alto, the streets were filled with people hanging out, many with big plastic cups of mojitos or caipirinhas in their hands.  These drinks are also very cheap, with an XXXXL drink costing you no more than 6 €.  Generally, prices are cheap in Lisboa, and it makes for a fun and lively nighttime scene.  There are plenty of cool bars and discos, and the atmosphere makes barhopping (with breaks in between) your best bet. And of course, many of the streets are gorgeous, in and of themselves.