On the way to Lisbon we drove across the Alentejo region of Portugal. It was simple and beautiful. The motorway cuts across the landscape’s rolling hills which are dry, underutilized, and mostly farmed in gnarled cork trees or bright green pines. We pulled off the motorway just once at a station to fill a tire with air and again a while later in a small and tidy town in search of a cafe with a restroom. It was a glorious day to travel with bright sunshine and the motorway itself was pretty vacant and well taken care of, obviously funded by all of the toll stations we were rolling through.

Our rural car journey was coming to an end as we approached the coastal city of Lisbon. Since it was a clear and sunny day, we could see the city sprawling out for a considerable distance at the waters edge as we started to cross the ten mile Vasco da Gamma Bridge, the longest bridge in Europe! As we finally got to the other end of the bridge, the city quickly became more compact and we were happy to evacuate from our rental car at the Airport and leave the city driving to our kind and soft-spoken Uber driver.

I’ll be honest, anybody would have gotten motion sick driving around in this city. The streets are cobbled, narrow, hilly, and never straight. I wouldn’t recommend driving here and, just when we thought the road couldn’t get any more narrow, we arrived at our Air BnB which had small metal hands for door knockers and overlooked the quiet cobble street below. 

Character. That’s what this city has. A LOT of character with a hint of crooked charm. We ventured out to explore more of it. 

The metro was not a means of transportation here as stations were too few and far between so we traveled on foot, slipping and sliding on the worn down cobblestones. Of course the sidewalks were just like the streets, wonky, winding, hilly, and nearly un-navigable. And there was graffiti everywhere which, ironically enough, was just what we were heading out to find. Graffiti, rather, street art by Vhils, known for his large-scale, concrete chiseled portraits.

We walked for about an hour dodging street trolleys, strolling down pink street, and meandering up sticker-clad staircases before successfully locating two different Vihl artworks. The first one we walked right past before getting to a five-way narrow intersection and turning around the way we had come, just to realize it had been behind us. The other was down a back stairway leading to a black cobbled street that few cars seemed to venture down. We would have never been able to locate either of them without the help of Google Maps. 

Our street art mission was a great way to explore the city and all of it quirks, crevices, and never straight paths. Go on the full journey of this epic 12 day trip to Spain and Portugal.

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