It’s been years since I’ve been here but the feel, the light and the character of this remarkable city remains the same.

To me, it’s one of the few European cities that exists primarily as a city for its inhabitants and not a set piece for throngs of tourists.

Yes, in the last few years it’s endured the onslaught of hop on hop off buses and tacky American burger chains but it remains a city built for the Portuguese by the Portuguese..visitors welcome.

When I wander around Lisbon I feel like I’m in a real working city where people work not where they take meetings and count tourists . Even the commercial streets are crammed not with tacky souvenir shops but with food stores and restaurants where Portuguese shop ,

I love the faded magnificence of it. Happy to be what it is and still thriving and doing the business of being a city. A beautiful one !

It is not a gracious DC or a pompous London or a romantic date that is Paris. It is a real , luminous, gorgeous working city.

Due to our schedule we only had a day to explore it. So we took a bus to the top of Paraue Edwardo VI and sauntered down to the bay . We explored small streets , interesting stores , road the funicular up to the mirador and walk and walked .

As we walked down through the Jardins de Avenida de Libertade and across the Praça dos Restauradores down through the crowded shopping street all the way to the bay; the sense of being someplace , A specific place , a place unique all around you is almost physical. I love Lisbon and could spend many evenings wandering it’s streets and boulevards. I’ll shut up now and just share the pictures