The icing on the cake of the tragedy of economic crisis (after the hardship, broken families, incapacity to provide) is the depriving of an often overlooked factor of life : meaning and identity. If there ever was a city suffering of a deprived identity on the aftermath of economic crisis, it’s Lisbon.
The easy going, mellow and melancholic character of the Portuguese does not help in this strangely present yet constant sensation that something is off in this city.
Empty streets of Alfama
Unlike Paris, Berlin or even Barcelona, Lisbon, much like Portugal itself, had been for most of the past 200 years off the main circuits of tourism. A mellow capital with a provincial feeling,