Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time. This year is a significant anniversary in Portuguese history: it is 50 years since the Carnation Revolution ended a four-decade dictatorship established by António Salazar. With it, democracy came to Portugal, paving the way for the country’s 1986 entry into the European Economic Community.
In the years since, much has changed, and that’s especially true in the country’s capital, where the population and annual visitor numbers have since doubled. Lisbon has been discovered by tourists, investors and digital nomads alike; in 2022, under a controversial golden visa scheme introduced during the global financial crisis, an estimated 1300 millionaires moved in. But climb to the hilltop viewpoint at the Miradouro da Senhora do Monte, and it’s like nothing has changed.
Sprawling beyond is a fairytale landscape of terracotta-crowned roofs, centuries-old church towers and stony squares. In the distance are the medieval crenellated battlements of the Castelo de São Jorge. At that highest point of the city, on the widest stretch of the Tagus River at the westernmost edge of Europe, you grasp why the Carthaginians, Romans, Visigoths, Moors and some of today’s most successful capitalists have all been keen to call Lisbon home.
Thought to have been founded as a trading port city in 1200BC, Lisbon predates Rome. Like Paris, it is also described as the city of light. And it is soon set to tie with Córdo.
