A Queer Walking Tour of Lisbon
And making queer friends along the way!
Blink and you will miss the tiny little pride flags stuck in the windows of shops and cafes in Lisbon. Blink and you might miss its queer culture entirely. When I first visited Lisbon’s unofficial “gay village” it was a culture shock in comparison to the vibrant gay village of my city, Montreal. Nestled among the hip streets of Lisbon’s Bairro Alto district, the streets looked like any other. If I had no gone on the queer walking tour that I had found on AirBnB Experience, I might have assumed there was very little openly queer culture in Lisbon. How delightfully wrong I was!
Beautiful tiled buildings cast shade upon the Bairro Alto’s carefully crafted stone streets. Cozy tables and chairs were set up on wide sidewalks outside restaurants that smelled of herbs, fish and a smattering of international cuisines. I had walked these same streets during the day; they were quiet aside from a few shoppers and seniors chattering about life as they strolled. As I walked to meet my tour guide after the sun set, I noticed that the neighbourhood had changed. Daytime here was for the grandmas, nighttime was for the young.
I met my tour guide, Tiago, in the Principe Real district. I was the only participant on this cool February evening, it being the low season for travel in Portugal…
