Príncipe Real: The Neighbourhood That Got Expensive and Stayed Worth It

I am not going to pretend that Príncipe Real is still the neighbourhood it was ten years ago. It isn’t. The rents are high, the restaurants are expensive, the antique shops have been joined by concept stores and boutique hotels. The transformation is total and ongoing.

What has not changed is the garden. The Jardim do Príncipe Real (Praça do Príncipe Real, Lisbon) is still the garden. A hundred-year-old cedar of Lebanon in the centre, benches around it, men playing cards on Saturday mornings as they have for decades. The neighbourhood has been completely transformed and the garden sits in the middle of it unchanged, which is either a miracle or a reproach depending on how you look at it.

The Mercado de Antiguidades (Praça do Príncipe Real, Lisbon) runs in the garden on Saturdays — antiques, old books, ceramics, the occasional tile. Prices have gone up with the neighbourhood but the market itself is still there, which is more than can be said for some things. I go most Saturdays when I’m in the area, buy something small, walk home via the Livraria Aillaud e Lellos (Rua Dom Pedro V 70, Príncipe Real), which is a bookshop that has been on that street longer than I’ve been alive.

The Pavilhão Chinês (Rua Dom Pedro V 89, Príncipe Real) is the bar that proves Príncipe Real has not entirely lost its eccentricity. Every room is lined floor to ceiling with glass cases of accumulated objects — thousands of them. It has been there since 1986 and it operates in complete indifference to the neighbourhood around it. A gin and tonic there in the late afternoon is the correct use of the place.

The neighbourhood is expensive. Go anyway. Not everything that costs more than it used to is not worth the cost.