Welcome to Lisboa

Why travel to Lisbon?

Lisbon, the city of light

Lisboa is a historic capital, a potpourri of unusual character and charm, where 800 years of cultural influences mingle with modern trends and life styles creating spectacular contrasts. In fact, Lisbon was designated a European City of Culture in 1994, and in 1998 it hosted the World’s Fair (Expo ’98). Despite modernization, Lisbon in many ways retains the air of a 19th-century city. The varinas (fish vendors) who roam the streets dressed in long black skirts still carry their wares in baskets on their heads. Vessels tie up at quays where the clang of trolley cars blends with ships’ horns. At dawn, fishing boats deposit their catch for noisy auction with Lisbon shop owners while the fish vendors wait to fill the baskets they peddle through the streets.

The general outlines of the city remain as they have for hundreds of years. Lisbon is still a city of balconies and vistas. Some of the most striking of the latter can be seen from the miradouros, the terraces maintained by the municipality on seven of its hillsides. (Many Lisboetas, as the people of Lisbon are known, profess their city to have seven traditional hills, like Rome.) For centuries Lisboetas have discussed the symptoms of an affliction they believe to be endemic in their city: saudade (“melancholy”), a state of anxiety tempered by fatalism that is said to be reflected in fado (“fate”), the melodic but deeply emotional folk songs that can still be heard in specific restaurants, mainly in the historic quarters of Alfama and Bairro Alto.