LISBON
Why I don’t like Lisbon
* * *
Stumble down a couple of big hills along the Rua de São Tomé, hang a left, waltz into the Miradouro de Santa Luzia, and you might decide that the end of the Old World is all you hoped it would be. That Lisbon is one of the most beautiful cities people have built.
You wouldn’t be wrong: Lisbon is beautiful.
And I really didn’t like it.
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I spent about three months in Lisbon. During that time, I learned it’s a city of surprising contradictions: dense but not traversable, beautiful but not relaxing, romanticized but not romantic. Below, I’ll aim to be somewhat organized about how I address the main reasons I didn’t love Lisbon. Shall we?
(Before we begin, remember the title of this essay: Why I didn’t like Lisbon. There were plenty of things I loved about Lisbon, like pastel de nata and quiet plazas tucked away in less-touristy neighborhoods where men in their final decades of life while away the afternoon over cards.)
I. The City & the City
One of the best things about Europe, one of the reasons so many foreigners flock to the continent every time they get a chance, is its cities. They’re older than many countries; filled with culture and lavish cathedrals and quiet terraces.
They are also known for being very walkable. Or otherwise easily traversable via public transit.
If you open Google Maps, Lisbon looks like one of those cities. At a high level, it looks like all the other old European cities do. And then you arrive, and you realize:
Lisbon just isn’t very fun to move around in.
The public transport, though it exists, isn’t very well-connected and is often jam-packed during the tourist season (which tends to be the months that Lisbon isn’t cold and rainy).
If you like to walk everywhere, which I do, you face another problem: the hills. In most desirable parts of the city, the hills are so extreme that in the warmer months you could reasonably end up drenched in sweat after a morning walk to the grocery store and back. Even when it’s not warm outside or you are in the mood to do some exercise, the hills simply add friction to your walk—they take time to climb. Worse yet, many of the sidewalks in the center of the city are impossibly narrow and seem designed to test your balance; the materials they use simulate the conditions on a poorly maintained ice rink. I don’t know how older folks do it.
Driving, like in most large European cities, is slow and often not comfortable.
Relative to other European cities, there is a lot of friction to moving around in Lisbon. Where in most cities a question in summertime like, ‘Hey, wanna walk 20 minutes to the café with me?’ merits an immediate yes, in Lisbon it’s also a question of if you want to take a short steep hike that leaves the back of your shirt drenched in sweat.
It’s a shame, because Lisbon is fun to explore. But there’s the Lisbon you see photos of and then there’s the Lisbon you walk around in, and one of those is a lot sweatier than the other.
II. Kitchen Confidential
When someone says they liked (or didn’t like) the food somewhere, they are often referring to a mix of two things: cuisine and quality.
In Lisbon, I wasn’t impressed by either.
Often the best place to figure out what the ‘real’ cuisine looks like in a country, at least in Europe, is to go to the affordable, unassuming spots that look like they’ve been there for 100-plus years and that are almost exclusively frequented by people over the age of 50. I went to plenty of those, and ate bacalao (salted cod) prepared a thousand-odd unique ways, plus other kinds of seafood, and poultry. I ate dozens of times at these places just a couple of years ago, and frankly couldn’t accurately describe a single one of the things I ate—they all were more or less the same, edible but not flavorful or complex. I also tried a few higher-end Portuguese restaurants, which ended up being more expensive versions of the same thing.
I care a lot about food, and I’d like to think I’m good at quickly identifying great places to eat in any given area. I failed in Lisbon, and I think a large part of it is that I just don’t love the cuisine. The ingredients and flavor palette of the country aren’t for me—your experience may differ.
Quality was the other factor. I got more food poisoning in Lisbon than any other European city. In fact, Lisbon is the only European city where I’ve had food poisoning that wasn’t self-inflicted (story for another day), and I got food poisoning three or four times in Lisbon. Aside from that, overall ingredient quality in the majority of restaurants wasn’t fantastic.
Your experience may vary: I noticed groups of Americans consistently eating waffles and avocado toaste in those one-size-fits-all ‘brunch’ places that’ve taken over the city, and they seemed to be having a good time.
III. Heart of Darkness
With regard to xenophobia, I may have been at a unique disadvantage in Lisbon. Just by looking at me, Portuguese people likely assumed I was American, which they don’t seem to love. And when I opened my mouth and started speaking Brazilian Portuguese, whatever poor opinion they were holding about me inevitably got worse.
Suffice to say, I encountered more general rudeness in Lisbon than I have in any other city in Europe (by a wide margin).
Talking with locals, I got the impression that although many of them are anti-immigration, at least they’re consistent. They hate the Americans and higher-income Europeans for coming in and spending a bunch of money, and they hate the Latinos for the same reasons a typical right-wing American might hate Mexicans.
I’m empathetic to this, to a degree. Portugal is one of the poorer countries in Europe, especially Western Europe, and there’s a chance they feel like the little brother getting taken advantage of by his older siblings. Still, it’s not very pleasant, and the overall vibe of the Portuguese people wasn’t friendly (to me). Quite literally, all of the top ten friendliest people I met in Lisbon—via random encounters exploring, at bars, playing sports, etc.—were immigrants, most of them from Latin America or Southeast Asia.
(Note: I suspect this might change in less-touristed areas outside of Lisbon, where locals might approach foreigners with curiosity rather than aggression or annoyance—I’m not sure.)
IV. The Sun Also Rises
Speaking of tourism, there is a lot of it in Lisbon.
This sounds ironic—I was a tourist there too!—but it’s true that places can be over-touristed, and Lisbon felt like it had reached that point. (I’ll be doing my part by not going back.)
Americanized brunch spots serving cocktails and avocado toast occupied ornate spaces that I imagine were once homes to cafés you would actually want to go to; navigating the narrow sidewalks in the popular parts of the city made you empathize with herded cattle; short-term rental prices for average apartments near the center were more than double the Portuguese minimum wage.
When this kind of overtourism happens to a place, it’s less fun to be in because 1) it’s crowded as hell! but also 2) because the most beautiful parts of the city lose their soul as all of the locals move out to neighborhoods they can actually afford. This was my impression of Lisbon.
Recap:
• There is a higher friction to move around in Lisbon than in other similarly sized European cities.
• The cuisine wasn’t to my taste, food quality was not great, and I got lots of food poisoning.
• I encountered lots of xenophobia. Locals in general were ruder than in other cities.
• The city felt overtouristed, and affected in a negative way by that overtourism.
* * *
Stumble down a couple of big hills along the Rua de São Tomé, hang a left, waltz into the Miradouro de Santa Luzia, and you might decide that the end of the Old World is all you hoped it would be. That Lisbon is one of the most beautiful cities people have built.
You wouldn’t be wrong: Lisbon is beautiful.
And I really didn’t like it.
I spent about three months in Lisbon. During that time, I learned it’s a city of surprising contradictions: dense but not traversable, beautiful but not relaxing, romanticized but not romantic. Below, I’ll aim to be somewhat organized about how I address the main reasons I didn’t love Lisbon. Shall we?
(Before we begin, remember the title of this essay: Why I didn’t like Lisbon. There were plenty of things I loved about Lisbon, like pastel de nata and quiet plazas tucked away in less-touristy neighborhoods where men in their final decades of life while away the afternoon over cards.)
I. The City & the City
One of the best things about Europe, one of the reasons so many foreigners flock to the continent every time they get a chance, is its cities. They’re older than many countries; filled with culture and lavish cathedrals and quiet terraces.
They are also known for being very walkable. Or otherwise easily traversable via public transit.
If you open Google Maps, Lisbon looks like one of those cities. At a high level, it looks like all the other old European cities do. And then you arrive, and you realize:
Lisbon just isn’t very fun to move around in.
The public transport, though it exists, isn’t very well-connected and is often jam-packed during the tourist season (which tends to be the months that Lisbon isn’t cold and rainy).
If you like to walk everywhere, which I do, you face another problem: the hills. In most desirable parts of the city, the hills are so extreme that in the warmer months you could reasonably end up drenched in sweat after a morning walk to the grocery store and back. Even when it’s not warm outside or you are in the mood to do some exercise, the hills simply add friction to your walk—they take time to climb. Worse yet, many of the sidewalks in the center of the city are impossibly narrow and seem designed to test your balance; the materials they use simulate the conditions on a poorly maintained ice rink. I don’t know how older folks do it.
Driving, like in most large European cities, is slow and often not comfortable.
Relative to other European cities, there is a lot of friction to moving around in Lisbon. Where in most cities a question in summertime like, ‘Hey, wanna walk 20 minutes to the café with me?’ merits an immediate yes, in Lisbon it’s also a question of if you want to take a short steep hike that leaves the back of your shirt drenched in sweat.
It’s a shame, because Lisbon is fun to explore. But there’s the Lisbon you see photos of and then there’s the Lisbon you walk around in, and one of those is a lot sweatier than the other.
II. Kitchen Confidential
When someone says they liked (or didn’t like) the food somewhere, they are often referring to a mix of two things: cuisine and quality.
In Lisbon, I wasn’t impressed by either.
Often the best place to figure out what the ‘real’ cuisine looks like in a country, at least in Europe, is to go to the affordable, unassuming spots that look like they’ve been there for 100-plus years and that are almost exclusively frequented by people over the age of 50. I went to plenty of those, and ate bacalao (salted cod) prepared a thousand-odd unique ways, plus other kinds of seafood, and poultry. I ate dozens of times at these places just a couple of years ago, and frankly couldn’t accurately describe a single one of the things I ate—they all were more or less the same, edible but not flavorful or complex. I also tried a few higher-end Portuguese restaurants, which ended up being more expensive versions of the same thing.
I care a lot about food, and I’d like to think I’m good at quickly identifying great places to eat in any given area. I failed in Lisbon, and I think a large part of it is that I just don’t love the cuisine. The ingredients and flavor palette of the country aren’t for me—your experience may differ.
Quality was the other factor. I got more food poisoning in Lisbon than any other European city. In fact, Lisbon is the only European city where I’ve had food poisoning that wasn’t self-inflicted (story for another day), and I got food poisoning three or four times in Lisbon. Aside from that, overall ingredient quality in the majority of restaurants wasn’t fantastic.
Your experience may vary: I noticed groups of Americans consistently eating waffles and avocado toaste in those one-size-fits-all ‘brunch’ places that’ve taken over the city, and they seemed to be having a good time.
III. Heart of Darkness
With regard to xenophobia, I may have been at a unique disadvantage in Lisbon. Just by looking at me, Portuguese people likely assumed I was American, which they don’t seem to love. And when I opened my mouth and started speaking Brazilian Portuguese, whatever poor opinion they were holding about me inevitably got worse.
Suffice to say, I encountered more general rudeness in Lisbon than I have in any other city in Europe (by a wide margin).
Talking with locals, I got the impression that although many of them are anti-immigration, at least they’re consistent. They hate the Americans and higher-income Europeans for coming in and spending a bunch of money, and they hate the Latinos for the same reasons a typical right-wing American might hate Mexicans.
I’m empathetic to this, to a degree. Portugal is one of the poorer countries in Europe, especially Western Europe, and there’s a chance they feel like the little brother getting taken advantage of by his older siblings. Still, it’s not very pleasant, and the overall vibe of the Portuguese people wasn’t friendly (to me). Quite literally, all of the top ten friendliest people I met in Lisbon—via random encounters exploring, at bars, playing sports, etc.—were immigrants, most of them from Latin America or Southeast Asia.
(Note: I suspect this might change in less-touristed areas outside of Lisbon, where locals might approach foreigners with curiosity rather than aggression or annoyance—I’m not sure.)
IV. The Sun Also Rises
Speaking of tourism, there is a lot of it in Lisbon.
This sounds ironic—I was a tourist there too!—but it’s true that places can be over-touristed, and Lisbon felt like it had reached that point. (I’ll be doing my part by not going back.)
Americanized brunch spots serving cocktails and avocado toast occupied ornate spaces that I imagine were once homes to cafés you would actually want to go to; navigating the narrow sidewalks in the popular parts of the city made you empathize with herded cattle; short-term rental prices for average apartments near the center were more than double the Portuguese minimum wage.
When this kind of overtourism happens to a place, it’s less fun to be in because 1) it’s crowded as hell! but also 2) because the most beautiful parts of the city lose their soul as all of the locals move out to neighborhoods they can actually afford. This was my impression of Lisbon.
Recap:
• There is a higher friction to move around in Lisbon than in other similarly sized European cities.
• The cuisine wasn’t to my taste, food quality was not great, and I got lots of food poisoning.
• I encountered lots of xenophobia. Locals in general were ruder than in other cities.
• The city felt overtouristed, and affected in a negative way by that overtourism.