A local’s guide to Lisbon
- By Catarina Fernandes Martins
- Photos by Tiago Maya
There’s a saying in Portugal about our mercurial people: We go from 8 to 80, from zero to hero, in hating to loving ourselves as a nation. But consistently beloved Lisbon is an exception.
Even after the rise of tourism-driven gentrification, the Portuguese love their capital city too much to resent it, preserving Lisbon instead in a golden cage of nostalgia that we call “saudade.” Expect to find some of this melancholy wandering the slippery cobblestones — as well as neighborhoods that seem to have forgotten about the past. We hope hilly and layered Lisbon shows you both.
Meet Catarina Fernandes Martins
Catarina has lived in Lisbon since 2008. She’s from a small town in the east of Portugal, which fostered an early desire to travel the world. She has yet to find a light she finds as magical as Lisbon’s.
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Explore more of Lisbon
Eat
- Salt-cod fritters should never have cheese inside them. Never.
- Those identifying as male thank someone by saying “obrigado.” Women use “obrigada.”
- Lisboans unite in our untranslatable saudade — a mystical form of nostalgia for the past, and even for the future.
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