The historic center of Lisbon, predictably, is too dense with beautiful historic buildings to allow for many murals. The truly gorgeous European cities—and Lisbon is definitely one of them!—typically make the most of space in a way that doesn’t leave room for big murals. Street are needs empty walls. So in a city like Lisbon, you have to look outside of the city center.
So the majority of these murals came from neighborhoods called Ajuda (west of the city center) and Graça (just east of the city center).
There is so much history here that it’s tempting to jump down a rabbit-hole, but I think that would actually be sort of a distraction. When I first arrived in Lisbon, although it was clearly rich in history, I spent most of my time just trying to wrap my head around how BEAUTIFUL it is. This is easily one of the most beautiful cities in Europe. I haven’t been everywhere yet, but in terms of raw aesthetics, Lisbon rocketed to the top of my list quite easily, along side places like Amsterdam, Stockholm, and Valletta.
Off the Sorrento Peninsula, in the Bay of Naples and the Tyrrhenian Sea, sits the tiny, beautiful island of Capri It may seem like the conversion of places into ~tourist destinations~ is something of a recent phenomenon—like in the last 70 years or so—but there are some places in this world that have attracted tourists for much, MUCH longer.
Capri is one of those places.
In fact, it was functioning as a vacation destination as far back as the ROMAN EMPIRE, likely before the birth of Christ. We actually don’t even know the origin of the name “Capri.” This idyllic isle just is. It’s eternal; immortal. And it’s also one of the rare places in the world where tourism cannot possibly cheapen the destination; it IS the destination.
