Lisboa - a missed must
It’s January 2019, seven years ago, nearly to the day, we are in the Casa Balthazar as old friends and emerging partners. We are discovering mutual delights in the culture and the ambience, capturing our coupled reflection in the river building window and amongst the scribbles in the mirrors of the Duque do Rua. The sun was bright then too, the air crisp and chill, the pretence of nonchalance evident in the photos as the foundations of shared experiences were laid down in the bars and coffee shops of this comfortable city.
So much of the Tagus has flowed by since then, and how often we have repeated the journey and the satisfaction. We have more than once toyed with the prospect of a home in those streets and yet have realised the damage to be done by us and others as our interest in possessions precludes the very people and lifestyle in which we wish to be immersed. Instead, we now come to Lisbon infrequently but with anticipation and desire, to meet old acquaintances, visit old haunts, walk old streets and climb old hills, listen again to old music played and sung by old people who hold and nurture the differences we enjoy.
It’s January 2019, seven years ago, nearly to the day, we are in the Casa Balthazar as old friends and emerging partners. We are discovering mutual delights in the culture and the ambience, capturing our coupled reflection in the river building window and amongst the scribbles in the mirrors of the Duque do Rua. The sun was bright then too, the air crisp and chill, the pretence of nonchalance evident in the photos as the foundations of shared experiences were laid down in the bars and coffee shops of this comfortable city.
So much of the Tagus has flowed by since then, and how often we have repeated the journey and the satisfaction. We have more than once toyed with the prospect of a home in those streets and yet have realised the damage to be done by us and others as our interest in possessions precludes the very people and lifestyle in which we wish to be immersed. Instead, we now come to Lisbon infrequently but with anticipation and desire, to meet old acquaintances, visit old haunts, walk old streets and climb old hills, listen again to old music played and sung by old people who hold and nurture the differences we enjoy.
And here we are once more, in the finely detailed rooms of the Balthazar, having travelled into town with a most interesting taxi driver, speaking knowledgeably and passionately of the times of change in the 1970’s. Little has changed in our walk down the cobbled hills to our spirits bar near the station where we take up conversation with two joyful Portuguese teachers, conversation that spills out of the bar and across the street, to break bread and solve so many of the world’s problems until it’s late and time to hug and part and maybe meet again and maybe not, for in Lisbon they are relaxed about these things.
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We revel in the elegance of the Balthazar breakfast, we stroll in a Sunday morning’s bright warm sunshine with a dash of sharp breeze, are much impressed by the excellent form and contents of the Maat, walk in the heat of the dockside, and linger long in the cool of the small white marbled squares. As the evening draws in we descend to friends in the comfort of the Duque da Rua to spend the closing hours immersed in their deeply mournful fado cries, in their joyful recognition and in their unerring hospitality. There is talk of tears shed in Maputo.
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A Monday morning spent wandering through Bica, seeing what’s changed and what is changing amongst so much that merely gets gently older, reminiscing on street corners and peering through familiar windows. We walk the tangle of passageways and streets unaided, for we know these neighbourhoods and have confidence, down eventually to the dockside, where good food awaits, hidden amongst the containers, a time worn ambience of stripped 30’s industrial and quick lunching locals, slowly sipping new green wine.
Until it’s time to amble back, to pick off a few missed musts as we go, and to make our way home. 
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January 2026