Travel Notes | Lisbon

The city felt like it was built from light. It poured down narrow streets, slipped through lace-iron balconies, and bounced off tiled walls in quiet, glittering defiance. Every turn seemed to offer a new surface for the sun to rest upon, pinks, yellows, faded blues that looked as if they’d been softened by decades of salt and heat.

Lisbon felt alive but unhurried, a place that invites you to wander rather than chase. I found myself walking without a map, following nothing in particular except the pull of light across a façade or the sound of a tram winding uphill. The city is a collage of contrasts — ancient stone next to glass, the stillness of old stairways broken by a sudden burst of neon after dark.

Our beautiful hotel.

I spent hours near the river, watching light move over the curve of the MAAT. That stretch felt almost Californian, a European San Francisco, if such a thing can exist, where the wind carries a sense of openness and the buildings seem to breathe with the tide. I loved it there most of all. The reflections on the water, the shadows cast by the bridge, the quiet hum of a city that knows how to balance the modern with the timeless.

By night, Lisbon shifted. Streetlights dripped golden pools onto cobblestones. Windows glowed. The city’s rhythm softened into something cinematic, the kind of light that makes you want to stay outside just a little longer, camera in hand, waiting for the final frame of the day.

Everywhere I went, there was a sense of memory built into the surfaces, chipped paint, wires crossing the sky, a curtain caught in a breeze. Lisbon isn’t polished, and that’s its beauty. It holds itself honestly, as if it knows it doesn’t need to be perfect to be unforgettable.