BAIRRO ALTO was invented as a neighborhood in the 16th century. It turned from a place of simple merchants to a paradise for the rich until, some 120 years ago, the exquisite figures of journalists, prostitutes or fado singers took over. It is said that it has a lot to feel and not that much to be seen, and his labyrinth-shape streets seem to confirm the statement.
In the 1980s it was the Lisbon version of Madrid’s ‘la movida’, where the night was the queen of the party with a multitude of bars, discotheques, a daring and innovative commerce, new and exciting restaurants and a lot of noise. One would have to wait for the break of morning to realize that BAIRRO ALTO was, in fact, a village in the middle of a roaring city.
Most of those characteristics were maintained, though BAIRRO ALTO is not the same has it once was. He’s trying to cope with the fact that for the last twenty years Lisbon turned his attention to the river, that it is becoming harder to survive as a pleasure fair without the views that the water offers on its way to the Atlantic.
A renewal was in order. There are now good places to sleep, new formats of stores, new ideas, pretty much the same kind of bars but, most of all, the sense that BAIRRO ALTO doesn’t fit the bill of a place where you go simply to waste the night away.
A great walk (the use of a car is kind of silly and unpractical) and a handful of mandatory stops. Welcome to BAIRRO ALTO!
