Vendendo Lisboa de
barato e a curtíssimo prazo ao Turismo de Massas
Este testemunho de
um turista é dedicado a Fernando Medina
OVOODOCORVO
Our
feelings on Lisbon
.
As stated at the
top, we didn’t enjoy our time in Lisbon. Part of that was Lisbon
itself, but most of it resulted from other factors
I’ll say right off
the top that if you are staying in Lisbon 7 days or less none of the
below will probably apply to you. You’ll walk around, enjoying the
sights on your short stay, and will most likely come away with the
opinion that Lisbon is a beautiful place. For us however, as
full-time travellers who stay somewhere for a month (or more), there
were aspects of Lisbon that left us with a bad taste in our mouths.
Our accommodation.
We stayed on Rua da Alegria in the Bairro Alto. What looked initially
like a comfortable apartment ended up being our worst ever Airbnb
experience. We have never stayed in a place where you can actually
hear people talking through the ceiling. Never mind when they walked
around with high heels, dragged furniture around, dropped stuff on
the floor or came home at 2am to start fighting (there was one night
where we thought we would have to call the police). We found out that
most of the building (including the apartment upstairs) was rented
out by their owners as Airbnb apartments. Neighboring buildings also
seemed to be full of Airbnb apartments. A few readers have mentioned
to us the “Airbnb-nization” of neighborhoods. This was our first
experience with it. The problem when you stay in an “Airbnb
neighborhood” is two-fold: tourists who act like loud monkeys with
little concern for neighbors, Airbnb hosts who just don’t care
about their property or providing quality accommodation.
lisbon-accommodationugg
It may have been
fine for a few days but the constant noise and bad sleep wore on us.
Staying in this apartment a month sucked.
Tourists and the
local experience: The amount of tourists in Lisbon was astounding.
Walking through the Baixa was like walking through a traffic jam of
tourists. Walk the Alfama, or go to any tourist site, and there were
lines and crowds everywhere. Take the famous 28 tram at 8:30 in the
morning and it will still be crowded, standing room only. We were
more likely to hear French or Spanish walking around than Portuguese.
With the tourists came the riff raff: the Senegalese touts selling
cheap trinkets and the dealers offering drugs on street corners. As
mentioned above, we were never propositioned for drugs as much as we
were in Lisbon. We met friendly locals when we joined the gym…but
those local experiences were rare during our month in Lisbon.
tourist-lines
What I remember from
my previous visit to Lisbon 25 years ago was how charming it was.
Lisbon was all about charm. It may have been rough around the edges
at the time, but it all felt authentic. There was no authentic
experience this time around. We’ve found that the more we travel,
the more we enjoy authentic, off-the-beaten path places that don’t
have hordes of tourists.
Practicality of
having Lisbon as a base. Lisbon was one of the most impractical bases
we’ve ever had. The closest grocery store to us (a Minipreço) was
a 10 minute walk away, up a hill and down another, and was always
jam-packed (again, mostly with tourists). It was small and had little
selection. We thought that our host was mistaken. There had to be a
bigger grocery store right? We went to 2 tourist information centers
(on Praça do Comércio and Praça dos Restauradores) and were told
at both that there was nothing larger in central Lisbon. That we
should go to the Centro Colombo in the newer part of Lisbon. Where to
buy bathroom products like face creams, deodorants, nail polish, baby
powder? (Ie ordinary drugstore stuff). Well, there are tons of
pharmacies in central Lisbon selling overpriced Vichy creams (29
Euros for a small jar) and expensive cosmetics. But it was
ridiculously priced. Again, at the tourist information center: “go
to Colombo”. So we took the metro to Centro Colombo, 8 metro stops
away. And yes, we found everything we needed at half the price
(there’s a huge store there called Continente). But I’ve never
seen a city where we had to go so far out of our way to find basic
essentials.
In fact most of the
downtown area is filled with restaurants, gift shops, bakeries and
cafés. All catering to tourists. But there were very little of the
practical kinds of stores necessary for travellers like us. We ended
up doing most of our grocery shopping at the mini grocery stores on
our street, all owned by friendly Bangladeshis.
The “Wow”
factor. I know I’ll get people angry with this. But the fact is
that of the tourist sights in Lisbon few produced much of a “wow”
factor for us. The Jerónimos Monastery is incredible, the Tile
Museum and Madre de Deus Church are impressive, and the Santa Justa
lift is interesting. But other than these I can’t say we were
really blown away by any specific sites. I was excited to see the
different viewpoints but in the end they didn’t live up to
expectations either. What we actually loved the most in Lisbon were
the pretty squares and parks, most with fountains and shaded with
lots of trees, surrounded by beautiful buildings and colorful tiles.
We would often sit in a café in one of those squares and just enjoy
seeing the locals living life with their dogs and kids. I think it
was this we enjoyed most – it wasn’t visiting “the highlights”
or trudging up hills with the tourist hordes. I think the beauty of
Lisbon lies in the total ensemble and not the individual sights
themselves. Walk the streets and look at the buildings and murals.
They’re beautiful. But again, we didn’t have many “Wow, that is
amazing” moments.
The above is our
opinion. Maybe our miserable accommodation and lack of sleep shaped
how we feel about Lisbon and made us biased. But that was our
experience*.
* We have a few
fellow bloggers who felt the same way about Lisbon in the summer but
who liked the city much more when revisiting during low tourist
season. I would really recommend that you avoid June – September.
Maybe we would have had a totally different experience.
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário