Reception Committee of a different kind

What do you think about a city where you are greeted first and foremost by a whole invasion of cockroaches? In all sorts of sizes they romped over the dirty pavement and along the facades of houses near my home. So many that you could not count them and had to be careful at every step, because even at the thought of the cracking of the hard shiny chitin armor, your hair is on edge.

Then the feisty, older, almost angry-looking lady with her walking stick and the murderous lust in her eyes becomes my secret heroine. She has the courage and gradually crushes the creepy-crawlies on the way to the Baixa, the city center of Lisbon.

Now you might think it goes on but not at all. The cockroaches were really just the reception committee.

The city clearly has a garbage problem. You have the feeling it just can not handle the masses of tourists and their waste. The trash cans swell over and over, so that some plastic waste just lands next to it. Something urgently needs to be changed here so that Lisbon can be called the pearl at the Atlantic coast for even longer.

Lisboa, as it is called in Portuguese, offers the traveler faces that let forget all the filth. Walking through the streets, they reveal their melancholy beauty. The splendor of bygone times has faded but left behind a touching charm. Each of the beautiful Azulejos decorated house facades seems to tell its own story. What kind of people live in these houses? Do the houses have such a dilapidated charm from the inside, too? It remains a secret. It is rare to get an insight into the apartments from the street.

Lisbon could also be called "the city of wide views". There is a miradouro in almost every neighborhood, observation decks with the best views over the 7 hills on which Lisbon was built. By far the most beautiful is the Miradouro Santa Luzia in the district of Alfama. An early visit will be rewarded with a breathtaking view of the sunrise.

In the small side streets you can find again and again true works of art. Many street artists have immortalized themselves on the walls and make the city, which is otherwise held in pastel beige, pink, blue and ocher tones, in some areas a colorful, hip city. Speaking hip the hipster seems to be widespread among young adults in Lisbon.