I’VE NEVER BEEN TO... LISBON
For Emma Beaumont, a trip to Portugal’s capital seemed too mainstream and obvious – until now
Early in my teenage years, I declared war on anything “mainstream”, or more plainly, popular. The small detail that I was intensely middle-class and living in rural North Yorkshire was irrelevant; everything I owned had to be cutting edge, from highly flammable PVC jackets to limited-edition vinyl records.
Thankfully, the scales fell from my eyes after university, but one arrogant attitude lingers. When it comes to travel, I always go somewhere unexpected or out of the ordinary. Forget Barcelona, give me the port city of A Coruña in Galicia. Likewise, on a trip to south-east Asia, I ignored Thai beaches in favour of the jungles of Laos.
Lisbon was on my list for a time. A coastal city that had emerged from the rubble of a brutal financial crisis, it was cheaper than the likes of Barcelona and had long been ignored by Britons in favour of the Algarve. I couldn’t wait to book a painfully early Ryanair flight and search for a backstreet piri-piri chicken joint.
Then one summer in the mid-2010s, it felt like everyone I knew descended on the Portuguese capital to pick up pastéis de nata and take arty pictures of tiles and trams for Instagram. I couldn’t attend a dinner party without someone
bringing out a vinho verde and telling me to pack good shoes for the city’s hills. In the years since, its popularity has only intensified. So, like when you stop listening to a band because it’s too popular, I decided to skip Lisbon.
Of course, it is blinkered to reduce an exciting, evolving city to somewhere that is “over-exposed”. And maybe it is age, or more likely “pandemic thinking time”, but I’ve realised that this
approach is indicative of an incurious mind. Besides, although its meteoric rise has led to a crop of enticing boutique hotels and a foodie scene that continues to be among the most thrilling in Europe, its identity apparently remains uncompromised by all the attention. Now I am desperate to see what all the fuss is about – and with Portugal on the newly announced “green” list, I may just get my chance.