Loitering with intent in Lisbon

A dream trip of mine is to see San Francisco with some flowers in my hair (while I still have some on my head). Until then, I suppose the next best thing was our trip to Lisbon, the San Francisco of Europe. Like its Californian counterpart, this is also a city draped over hills that spill down to a seafront overshadowed by a monumental bridge.

Lisbon’s steep lanes are even climbed by streetcars, some of which are antiques…from San Francisco!

Our most recent fortnight holiday was two weeks away with a difference. Instead of our usual sun, sea, sand and sodoku, we booked two city breaks back to back. Crossing the Iberian peninsula from coast to coast, we stayed one week in the Portuguese capital followed by a week in the Catalonian capital, Barcelona. Also, instead of staying in a hotel or hostel, for the first time we booked city centre holiday apartments.

This meant instead of taking a breather in a hotel lounge while waiting to check in over a counter, we were left standing in the street a spell while we waited for our hostess to show up with the keys. I had rang her when our shuttle bus left the airport and we started our way into the city centre.  After being dropped off at Rossio, one of the central squares, we made a beeline for our flat.

I had mapped out the route at home using Google Streetview and knew exactly which landmarks to look for (including the streetwalkers in their boob tubes). It only took about five minutes to reach the outside of our flat even with us lugging heavy bags up a steep flight of steps. We beat our hostess to the flat and had a few minutes to scope out our new neighbourhood.

The Mouraria district is named after the Muslims who settled here after the Moorish invasion centuries ago. It remains popular with immigrants, which in Portugal mainly means Brazilians, Africans from Mozambique and Indians from Goa.

The pavements were in a sorry state and dotted with litter. The street had only a few cars parked at the sides and no through traffic, so the only sounds came from our neighbours sat behind their blinds which had been lowered to block out the late afternoon sun: murmuring voices, songs from a radio, caged birds and barking dogs.

Pigeons were flocking to a nearby open window where an old man was tossing out bread crumbs. A few pieces fell to the ground, but any pigeon who tried to peck at these scraps was soon set upon by a trio of mutts who spent the rest of their time snarling over a piece of rope in three-way tug of war.

No, this wasn’t the best first impression of Lisbon we could have expected. For all we knew, this could have been the shadiest part of town. As the minutes ticked by, the thought did occur that we had been scammed, that our deposit funds were being laundered as we stood there and we were about to be shanghaied by a corrupt gang of human traffickers.

So when a gap-toothed woman with a large Ikea carrier bag came towards us, we were prepared to surrender our valuables to save ourselves from a life in white slavery. It turned out this was Madalena, our hostess, with keys in hand. She opened up the front door and took us up two flights of narrow stairs to the top of the house. Despite the rooms being small, the flat had an abundance of windows with some excellent views, especially from the lounge.

According to a leaflet welcoming guests to the accommodation, the house was built in the 1690s but has been completely rebuilt inside and kitted out with all the mod cons including washing machine, hot water and shower. The kitchen had a kettle, microwave, hot plate, fridge and everything else that we needed. The whole point of going self-catering for a change was to be able to save a few pennies by cooking most of our meals, so our next task was to hit the shops.

Back outside, down the steps and on the nearest square we found an indoor market which had boxes of fresh fruit and veg lined up on the pavements outside. Inside we found all the essentials: cheap wine, bread, milk and CAKE. With a bag of pasta, a bottle of olive oil and some tomato sauce we had all the fixings for our evening meal. The market also had chiller cabinets filled with cheese, ham and skinned rabbits with fixed grins.

Uphill again and there was a little corner shop directly across from our flat which had a surprising array of goods. I bagged up some fresh tomatoes, soft cheese and a huge bottle of cold beer. Portuguese beer is dirt cheap and the most expensive item turned out to be the cheese. I remember on our first trip to the country  thinking that the price tag on a six pack was for one bottle, not all half dozen.

I had high hopes for our wine which was a 2005 reserve aged in oak barrels, from Serradayres in Ribatejo. Although fruity it was a bit acrid and a tad rough, with none of the smoothness a similarly aged Rioja offers. I warmed to it by the second glass though and thought it was 3 euros or so well spent.

We fried up some red pepper, mushrooms and onions from the market, added the tomato sauce and poured this over pasta which we ate with some olives, bread and steamed broccoli on the side. We noticed all the flat was missing was a radio. From what we could suss out the TV did not offer satellite as promised which meant we were limited to four channels of gibberish. Portuguese is a harsh language, although sharing much of the vocabulary with Spanish neighbours, the words are pronounced completely different and sounds almost Russian to me.

Through an open window we heard what could only be described as tribal drums. Looking out, we saw there was a tiny square under the trees below us, at the back of which was a bar grilling small fish on coals for a small crowd of locals. They wrapped things up around 10 and the neighbourhood once again went silent, just in time for us to hit the hay and rest up for our first full day in Lisbon.