LISBON’S NEIGHBOURHOOD GUIDE: SÉ AND CASTELO, A SOUL WITH A VIEW

As in all old, secular neighborhoods of Lisbon, people are coming to terms with words like ‘typical’, ‘apartments’ or ‘lounge’. Won over from the moors 870 years ago, the city (and SÉ and CASTELO in particular) try to maintain their traditions and embrace to the best of their abilities the gifts of massive tourism.

Climbing Travessa da Madalena and its ‘fado graffities’ and keeping in mind and stomach the delights of SÉ’s food (the whole of Cruzes da Sé street, for instance), you arrive at Costa do Castelo, a natural born terrace with the right amount of hostels, hotels, restaurants and the unavoidable ‘petiscos’ (snacks, for lack of a better word). It’s Lisbon on sheets, glasses of wine and beer and plates where the fork is always with you. A strip under the sun, in the shape of a pleasure dome. With views that will take your breath away, keep you thirsty and hungry for more.

In the morning, SÉ and CASTELO will wake you up with screamy greetings and odd gossips, clothes drying under the sun and the proper lust for life, for having a go at it all over again. Things of the soul, as we say. Without those things, Lisbon would still be sleeping by now.

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