Sentimental (and gastronomic) chronicle of Lisbon

Lisbon is in fashion.

It can be checked at any travel agency.

This summer its streets were boiling, flooded by a multi-national crowd.

Perhaps bored with other overcrowded destinations, the masses of Europe and elsewhere have rediscovered the westernmost capital of the Old Continent.

And one of the quietest.

The Portuguese, as you know, are peaceful and serene.

Faced with the phenomenon of tourism, they are divided into the two traditional sectors: those who hope to benefit from it and those who learn to bear it with resignation.

Be that as it may, by calculation or by patience, they treat the visitor wonderfully, who feels a bit like home in Lisbon, that is, sheltered and desolate at the same time.

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Strollers on a sidewalk in Lisbon's Martin Moniz square.Alamy Stock Photo

At the mouth of the pachydermic Tagus River, as gentle as it is indifferent, one can confess to a Portuguese person that one must live each day as if it were the last.

The Portuguese, then, will return a skeptical and deliberate look, and will assure: "It could be, but without losing the perspective that maybe he isn't."

View of the rooftops of Lisbon and the castle of São Jorge from the viewpoint of Nossa Senhora do Monte.by Marc Guitard (Getty Images)

A city must be understood immediately from a certain height.

That first perspective is fundamental.

In Lisbon, there are many viewpoints from which to contemplate the urban fabric: Santa Luzia, Santa Catarina, San Pedro de Alcántara, Senhora do Monte... A very interesting location for urban picado is the one offered by the castle of São Jorge, of Arab origin and a national monument since 1910. From any of these points the Portuguese capital bivouacs flirting with the Tagus.

View of Lisbon and the Tagus River from one of its viewpoints.

SHansche (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

A square that stands out in these views is that of Martin Moniz.

It is one of the most thriving leisure and restaurant spaces in present-day Lisbon.

Visitors, however, choose it for a very compelling reason: the famous tram 28 leaves from there. It is already known that the yellow trams are an emblem of Lisbon.

One of Lisbon's famous yellow trams in a street in the Alfama neighborhood.

In the background, the Sé or cathedral of Santa Maria Maior.

Alamy Stock Photo

These charming little gadgets allow you to overcome the many slopes of a city with many hills.

The 28 runs through the Estrela, Bairro Alto, Chiado, Graça and Alfama neighborhoods (with a stop in front of the National Pantheon, the Sé-Cathedral, the Portas do Sol viewpoint and the São Jorge Castle, among others).

It only has one drawback: the vehicles have little capacity and the queue to get on takes forever.

When the last tourists get a seat, a plane has calmly departed from Valencia and has arrived in Lisbon... If you want to avoid this wait, the best thing —and more expensive and less picturesque, but more practical— is to get on a

.

Interior of the Fernando Pessoa house museum in Rua Coelho da Rocha.Alamy Stock Photo

Some visitors may be drawn to the memory of Fernando Pessoa, Portugal's most legendary writer.

The Portuguese language acquires anti-metaphysical depths with Pessoa.

To evoke his figure, it is advisable to stay, as I do, in a hotel in Praça da Figueira, the one sang by Álvaro de Campos.

street starts from here

par excellence, Rua dos Douradores.

The writer lived there and worked in a seedy office.

Today it is an exquisite road, perfectly rehabilitated, with trendy shops and cafes.

Pessoa's other home, where he lived between 1920 and 1935, is located on Rua Coelho da Rocha.

The building today houses the House Museum of the writer.

Of his personal belongings, only his bed and a replica of the chest where he kept the 30,000 posthumous pages that constitute his work are preserved.

There are other points of memory of the author of the

in the city: the most famous is the A Brasileira café, which he frequented, and where he is represented by a curious seated statue.

Entrance of the emblematic café A Brasileira, founded in 1905 on Rua Garrett, in the Chiado neighborhood, where the writer Fernando Pessoa used to stop.

mtcurado (Getty Images)

Once the

it is possible that the visitor will get hungry.

In Lisbon you have to eat fish, especially cod (for a reason they have the formidable pantry of the Atlantic).

However, its two most peculiar gastronomic emblems are minimalist.

It's about sardines and

de nata.

What the Portuguese have done with the sardine is a metaphor for their evolution as a country.

Less than half a century ago, this clupeiform, gregarious and modest fish was part of the misery of the sea, both in Portugal and Spain.

It was the food of the poor: it had no more value.

Today, canned sardines are sold in shops that look like jewelry stores (for example, the Mondo Fantástico da Sardinha Portuguesa chain).

And it is that its price is jewel: a simple can of 115 grams costs 15 euros;

22 if it contains edible gold flakes.

Sardine roe is priced at 52 euros per can.

O Mundo Fantastico as sardinha Portuguesa shop, in the Rossio square in Lisbon.

Bildagentur-online/Schöning (Bildagentur-online/Universal Ima)

It is advisable, however, to try the fresh grilled sardine, which is offered in many Lisbon restaurants as a delicacy, which it undoubtedly is.

This cooking method was already recommended by Josep Pla in his time: "Never eat grilled sardines, always grilled," exhorted the author of

(1972).

The Portuguese, without knowing it, are very

.

A very reasonable goal is to go at night to one of the alleys of Chiado (the most bohemian neighborhood in the city, but also the poshest, with its pastel-colored facades and high-end shops).

There you can dine while listening to live fado singing.

In the Tasca do Chico (Rua do Diário de Notícias), with a bit of luck, you can attend impromptu concerts by professionals with a lot of tradition.

Other restaurants in the city where very good fish are served are Merendinha do Arco, Último Porto, A Baiuca, Tasquinha do Lagarto or Zé da Mouraria.

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As for the pastel de nata, it is a small puff pastry tart filled with cream.

It really is a delicious dessert, whose preparation is disputed by the best sweet shops in the city: La Manteigaria, Fábrica da Nata, Pastelaria Santo Antonio, Pastelaria Batalha... There is no mystery to puff pastry, so the key is inside.

It seems that the original recipe -which is jealously guarded- comes from Belem.

'Pastéis de nata', tartlets filled with cream, in a Lisbon workshop.

by Marc Guitard (Getty Images)

Two places in the city deserve careful comment.

For art lovers, your appointment is with the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, on Avenida de Berna.

It is the most important cultural institution in Portugal, the product of the generosity of an oil tycoon of Armenian origin —Gulbenkian— who lived in the country after taking refuge there in World War II.

The complex is made up of works from all periods and includes a thematic library with more than 160,000 titles.

Ruins of the Carmo Convent, in Baixa, destroyed by the earthquake that devastated Lisbon in 1755. Ega Birk (Getty Images/Westend61)

The most unique site, however, is undoubtedly the Carmo convent, in the Baixa.

It is a church partially demolished by the 1755 earthquake, which devastated Lisbon.

A part of his factory is still standing.

Today it is part of an Archaeological Museum and it is a strange place, perhaps a liminal space in the anthropological sense.

There is something of interrupted ritual in these ruins.

It is the skeleton of a sacred space, which resists being considered exclusively profane.

The visitor, with a certain expectation, admires from there the sky of Lisbon, with its purest blue, waiting for a revelation that never occurs.

And this chronicle must end here, so that it does not get too sentimental.

Joan Garí

is the author of

(Onada publishing house).

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