Maybe because I have been immersed in this city for so long – practically my entire life – I realize that it is not easy for me to write about Lisbon. Being Portuguese yet feeling “not entirely” Portuguese because of my mixed family roots, intertwining Brazilian, Swiss and Hungarian blood and culture, I ended up being a local with a kind of “outsider perspective”. An alfacinha with both critical distance and continuously renewed passion for my own city.
So while I cannot write about when “I arrived” in Lisbon – I will tell you about some moments that I most fondly remember from my lifelong love story with this city – like a string of pearls, scattered over time, ever precious.
As a child, I remember I really enjoyed the everyday ritual of crossing Monsanto by car on my way to the Lycée Français. It felt like meandering through a half-asleep forest in the early morning, inside which my curious hazy eyes loved gazing. My inquiries about the numerous women standing beside the road, soon pressed my parents to explain why those “working ladies” were waiting for clients to take into the woods. It was somehow fascinating to realize that the forest was a silent accomplice for so many different people in such diverse activities. This new layer of reality, added to my personal “magic forest”, triggered me to start fantasizing about these encounters in the wild, but also imagining the lives of those women, for it was neither lust nor joy that I saw in their eyes.
I kept crossing Monsanto until I was 17 years old. As I grew up, my view on things progressively changed, at the same time as new life was brought to this green part of the city, more appropriate for family explorers and sports aficionados. Nowadays, Monsanto has still not lost its mysteries and it keeps being a place of discovery and tranquility for me. I still go there to have the feeling of “entering another world”, to enjoy a hike or revisit one of its splendid viewpoints over our Cidade Branca.
Monsanto has still not lost its mysteries and it keeps being a place of discovery and tranquility for me. I still go there to have the feeling of “entering another world”, to enjoy a hike or revisit one of its splendid viewpoints over our Cidade Branca.
Belém is another area for which I’ve grown a special affection. In my teenage years, I used to live in Restelo, so I would easily follow down the avenue towards the river, to arrive between the Pastéis de Belém factory and the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos. I was a regular visitor at Centro Cultural de Belém, where I saw so many inspiring and emblematic exhibitions on photography, architecture and contemporary art. Although the building’s stone architecture is quite austere, its privileged location and the contrast with the surrounding gardens never ceased to strike me. One of my favourite spots is the Jardim das Oliveiras, right in front of the restaurant’s terrace: I experienced moments of pure bliss every time I sat down on the lawn under a glorious sunny sky, gazing over the ever changing view of the river. The light here is amazing, especially during long summer afternoons.
It was in this same cultural centre that my teenage heart fell in love with Renaud Capuçon playing Vivaldi as if his soul breathed through his violin, in an unassuming concert on the first edition of the Dias da Música festival. I had only regained my breath when I entered the great concert hall to helplessly surrender to Bach’s poignant Johannes Passion – not knowing that its Agnus Dei aria would become one of my passions throughout life. It moves me when I gaze at the clouds while driving, and I devoutly practice it in my singing lessons.
I’ve always said to myself that if I were to rob something, it wouldn’t be a bank but an art supplies store – and the CCB also houses one of the nicest stationery & gift shops I can remember, along with other interesting shops that I would visit from time to time: a large bookshop focused on Arts, an exotic store with imported clothes and objects, a laid-back art gallery, a local jewellery and a crafts & design store.
I was a regular visitor at Centro Cultural de Belém, where I saw so many inspiring and emblematic exhibitions on photography, architecture and contemporary art.
Just a bit further up the river, I later discovered Espaço Espelho d’Água – which became one of my best-loved places in Lisbon, on both sunny and wintery days. Sitting in this tranquil terrace by the water, time seems to hold its pace while watching the sailboats and passersby. You’d probably never have guessed that this spacious modernist building is actually a surviving pavilion of the grand 1940’s Exposição do Mundo Português. This Portuguese World Exhibition intended to mark 800 years since Portugal’s foundation, but notably to serve as a political-cultural celebration of the Estado Novo totalitarian regime under Salazar.
In modern days, it has had many different lives: once a Naval Brigade private club, then turned into the mythical T-Club discotheque in the late 90’s, to later house a Chinese restaurant. What I like about this café-restaurant is its versatility, and also its concept: it was created as a “cultural crossroad”, a meeting point between Portuguese, Brazilian and African cultures (as you can confirm by the food they serve, and the nice music selection they play) – they also hold regular exhibitions and live concerts, which altogether make this a quite unique project in Lisbon’s cultural and artistic environment.
Like a good native Portuguese, I love eating fish. For me, a must-go are the seafood restaurants next to the Clube Naval in Belém, where I personally recommend O Pedrouços: after having some of the best grilled fish you’ll find, take a long relaxed walk by the river – on a fine day with good company and comfortable shoes you can easily walk up to Cais do Sodré, or even Terreiro do Paço.
After having some of the best grilled fish you’ll find, take a long relaxed walk by the river – on a fine day with good company and comfortable shoes you can easily walk up to Cais do Sodré, or even Terreiro do Paço.
Another excellent restaurant worth knowing (and that I myself only discovered this year) is A Grelha – between Graça and Sapadores traditional neighbourhoods. In this unpretentious place where mostly only locals go, you may expect to feast on several grilled Portuguese delicacies and seafood, at a very accessible price. Don’t be surprised if Carlitos the waiter gives you a hug or offers you a beer, while affectionately calling you “meus queridos”, for he is genuinely a big-hearted unpredictable character!
To escape urban agitation, or just because my heart finds comfort amidst the green, there are a few lovely gardens in Lisbon I always enjoy coming back to. Gulbenkian gardens & museums are part of such places – and it’s not by chance that they are a renowned gem in the heart of the city. Fascinating antique and contemporary art collections are housed in here (as the unmissable René Lalique’s Art Nouveau/Art Déco creations), but this is also a special place for enjoying music: its wooden concert hall has a huge glass window at the back of the stage, that opens up to the beautiful lake and greenery during some evening concerts – making it a memorable experience.
But for me, the Gulbenkian foundation is a familiar landmark I remember since I was a small child: here I enjoyed feeding the fish and the ducks, or, according to my mother, “sharing old bread with them”. I happily sprawled on the grass and played hide-and-seek in its mysterious sculpture gardens.
The Gulbenkian foundation is a familiar landmark I remember since I was a small child: here I enjoyed feeding the fish and the ducks, or, according to my mother, “sharing old bread with them”.
Years later, I grew to appreciate the perfect marriage between its luscious landscape planning and the brutalist architectural project. While studying Communication Design at the Faculty of Fine Arts, I frequently visited the Art Library for research on projects. Me and a friend inclusively created an environmental multimedia project concept, designed to take place in Gulbenkian’s precincts (it consisted of walking through the gardens with earphones and, depending on the person’s trajectory, the soundscapes and soundtrack would adapt to induce a certain mood/ambient, according to preset narratives outlined by us).
And of course: you cannot go there without having lunch at the self-service restaurant inside CAMPJAP (the modern art center), where you can still find local specialties hardly seen in restaurants nowadays. Try the peixinhos da horta (meaning literally “little fish from the garden”: green beans in a fried batter) or the ovos verdes (these “green eggs” are boiled, yolk-seasoned, then fried) – then wrap it up with the fabulous homemade avocado mousse (I swear they must put some Port wine in it, but I never got to their secret recipe).
Very close by, lies another one of my treasured places in Lisbon: Linha d’Água – a simple and bright esplanade, hidden from the street level, facing a garden and a sky-mirroring water surface. This space invites to contemplation as well as to pleasant get-togethers. You can often observe the happy interaction between children, dogs, ducks and frogs, as if they were all under some invisible good influence – hail to Gonçalo Ribeiro Telles, our famed landscape architect behind this masterpiece garden!
Linha d’Água – a simple and bright esplanade, hidden from the street level, facing a garden and a sky-mirroring water surface.
As dusk falls, Lisbon begins to reveal its bohemian jewels to the ones who seek them – and the bars decorated by Luís Pinto Coelho are surely bright stars in the city’s night sky. Every time I come back to one of these beautiful vintage cocktail bars – like Procópio, Foxtrot or Pavilhão Chinês – I rediscover a proudly elegant glamour of an older version of Lisbon, so these are places that I always like to share with foreign friends.
Just outside of Lisbon, tucked away in Sintra‘s romantic woods, I recently rediscovered the Palácio de Monserrate to be even more beautiful than I remembered it. I was on a day trip with a group of Belgian friends, and we all wanted to linger there as if we could call it our home… The magnificent building that overlooks all surrounding hills boasts the most exotic and well combined cross-cultural ornaments – they reveal such a striking artfulness and a love for detail, that each one of us was left speechless. But clearly not only this construction was a labour of love: the gardens also stand out as the work of inspired artists – with its spectacular sloping lawn, its century-old trees, its rare collection of the most diverse ferns growing around its labyrinthic walkways, and its quiet ivy-covered ruins.
I recently rediscovered the Palácio de Monserrate to be even more beautiful than I remembered it. The magnificent building that overlooks all surrounding hills boasts the most exotic and well combined cross-cultural ornaments – they reveal such a striking artfulness and a love for detail, that each one of us was left speechless.
I couldn’t think of a better way to complement this day trip than doing a hike down Ribeira da Mula – a magical path beneath the canopy, following down a little creek to a wide lagoon – and having lunch on the porch of Nortada restaurant, overlooking Praia Grande. Here, it feels like time stops. As my eyes bathe in the immense ocean, I could swear its tidal rumours are softly whispering to me in Portuguese…
