I have lived in Lisbon many years.
Normally I don't tell people to go to a specific place. I say you only have to walk, in the center of the city. Walking the old parts--Alfama, Mouraria, Bairro Alto, Bica.
Because that's one of the pleasures of Lisbon. Having no destination. The sweetness of the easy life of Lisbon is that. It's really that. Suddenly, you turn a corner and see a very nice view. There's a nice terrace and you just want to sit.
Miradouro de Sao Pedro de Alcantara
Sunset on the Rio Tejo.
Miradouro da Graca, or technically, Miraodouro de Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen
Do you have a favorite view?
Let me think. It may be something obvious—a view with the river. Well, it depends, I mean, maybe you could look north.
Ah. Some time before my birthday, around the end of May or beginning of June, you have two or three streets in the city with jacaranda. The tree that flowers before it leaves. When they fall down its slippery. It's quite dangerous, actually, on the streets. One street is Avenida Dom Carlos, which begins at the parliament. At the end of Rua de São Bento, until the river. You have another one by the university, Duque de Ávila.
It’s not purple. It's light purple. It's lilac. It's not natural. Something pops. It comes from Brazil. It's talking with the rain. Here, you are still in Europe, but always maybe with one foot or one finger in the tropics. This color is really not common. It's something painted. It's something like 15 days that they are flowering, so it's very uncommon. It's always for my birthday! I arrived in Lisbon, and said, it’s for me.
What was your first impression when you moved to Lisbon?
I'm from Paris. I wasn't wrong, with my first impression. Because I was rapidly seeing that it was my city. A city for me. A city good for life. Sometimes it's hard to put into words. It's a question of feeling. It's a question of reason. A question of life.
Maybe it was obvious for me, because Paris was a very crowded city. Lots of people, lots of activity. This is a middle sized city. For me, I just arrived, and said it’s the city for me. The size of the city was for me.
Here, be careful. We always imagine Lisbon is a Mediterranean city. True. But with a more oceanic influence, so it's more like San Francisco. A lot of fog, a lot of rain. You don't have so many seasons. You have summer, but all the rest of the year, you never know. You can have cold, warm. In four days you could have four seasons.
And for me the big problem of Lisbon...because every nice place has problems. It's maybe not the weather itself, but how the city was built. Everything is built for summer. It's as if it doesn't rain here. But it does. And it's ugly when it rains. We don't have gutters, so when it rains, everything goes everywhere. So you just want to stay at home. And sometimes you have like one week, you wake up and it's raining, and you go to bed, and it’s raining. You wake up in the middle of the night, it's raining. For one week.
Everything is nice, aesthetically, but nothing practical for the rain. And even when it's dry, you can easily slip. You have no place to stop when you're falling down the hill. You have to have someone in your way to stop you.
How many years have you lived here?
Many. I forget the number. How long are you here?
Maybe a month.
Good. So many come for a few days or even one week, and they think they know the city. I'm quite fed up with the tourists who imagine they can understand this place in two or three days. Maybe they have the impression that it's an easy city. But it's a very complicated city. And since the crisis, it has changed, in the last few, maybe three, years. There has been a wave of tourists from Northern Europe. Many of the apartments around here are now rented to tourists by the week. I know so many locals who have sold their apartments recently.
People here love to speak. And maybe you feel this is one of the good things about Lisbon...well, every good thing has an opposite side. Sometimes, you understand, they don't even have a conversation. Only a "versation."
And the notion of time here is not really Northern European time. It's very south European time, very Mediterranean. There are lots of things to say about time here. There's no word for if you have a meeting with someone and he doesn't arrive. There's no word. It's not a problem.