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…
People arrive in Lisbon and want to understand Alfama. I understand the impulse — it is the neighbourhood that photographs best, the one that appears in every piece about the city. Narrow streets, laundry between windows, cats, azulejos, a view of the Tagus from the Miradouro da Graça (Largo da Graça, Alfama). All of this…
I grew up in Mouraria. My grandmother still lives two streets from where I was born. When people ask me to describe the neighbourhood I find I can’t do it the way you describe a place you’ve visited. You don’t describe your grandmother’s kitchen. You just know it. Mouraria is the oldest continuously inhabited neighbourhood…