Notes from a Week in Lisbon
Seven days, four notebooks, one very steep tram. I went to Lisbon in January because a friend said the light was different there, and I wanted to see if that was true.
It was true. The light in Lisbon in January is the color of an old photograph — not faded exactly, but softened, as if someone had already remembered it. I spent most of the week walking and writing and drinking small cups of coffee that were stronger than they looked.
Day one: the tram
The 28 tram is famous, which means it is crowded, which means I almost didn't take it. I'm glad I did. It climbs from Baixa up through Graça and into Alfama at a grade that feels physically unreasonable, and every few minutes it stops and lets a handful of people squeeze on while a handful squeeze off.
I stood the whole way, wedged between a woman carrying a bag of oranges and a man reading a newspaper folded to the size of a postcard. Nobody seemed annoyed. At one point the tram stopped entirely, for no reason anyone could see, and everyone just waited. After about ninety seconds it started again. It felt like the city had decided to take a breath.
Day three: the tiles
I knew about the azulejos before I came — the painted tiles on the facades of almost every old building. What I didn't expect was how varied they are. Some are geometric, some are scenes, some are just one color with a pattern so subtle you have to stand close to see it.
I started keeping a list of the ones I liked most, which turned into something closer to a taxonomy. Cobalt and white, repeating diamond. Green with a vine motif, slightly weathered. Something I couldn't name that looked like a map of a river.
By the end of the week the list had thirty-one entries and I had stopped taking photographs of them. A list, it turns out, makes you look more carefully than a camera does.
A list makes you look more carefully than a camera does. The camera says I was here. The list says I noticed this.
Day five: the morning sound
I woke up early most days, around six, because of the time difference and because the apartment I'd rented had thin walls and a neighbor who liked to start his day with the radio.
The sound of Portuguese at seven in the morning, through a wall, is one of the nicest things I've heard. I don't speak Portuguese. I understood maybe every twentieth word. But there's a rhythm to it — a rise and fall — that made me feel, absurdly, like I was part of something. The neighbor and I never met. We had breakfast together every day for a week.
Day seven: the hill
On my last morning I walked up to the Miradouro da Senhora do Monte, which is the highest viewpoint in the city and also the steepest approach I have ever willingly taken. It took about forty minutes. I stopped three times to pretend I was looking at something.
At the top there were four other people: an old man with a small dog, a couple taking turns photographing each other, and a woman writing in a notebook that looked exactly like mine. I sat on a bench and looked at the city for a while.
From up there, Lisbon doesn't look like a place you could get lost in. It looks like a diagram of itself — white and terracotta, folded around the river. It's only when you're down in it that it becomes a maze. Which is, I suppose, true of most things.
What I brought back
Four notebooks, one of which I filled entirely. A bag of coffee I haven't opened yet because I'm not ready for it to be gone. A list of thirty-one tiles. And a small, stubborn conviction that the light really is different there, and that I should travel with fewer plans than I used to.
I don't know when I'll go back. But I've started noticing the light in Copenhagen more than I did before, which is either a coincidence or the whole point.