After all the accolades heaped on it by US travel magazines, the “lure of Lisbon” has now been featured in Pakistan’s The Express Tribune.
“When I told my friends I wanted to backpack through Portugal, the first reaction I received was, ‘Since when have you been such a fan of Cristiano Ronaldo?’” journalist Amna Yamin explains.
But there were “many reasons” why she chose Portugal, she writes.
“Perhaps, it was the effect reading the book ‘Night Train to Lisbon’ had on me. It might also have been a postcard I received from an old Portuguese friend bearing the image of a ship in a vast ocean, with a message telling me to dream, explore and discover.”
“Lisbon is nothing like the other western European capitals I have been to,” she tells her readers.
“The people here are warm and friendly and the city, despite its thriving nightlife, manages to retain an old town feel. Perhaps this is due to the yellow trams that ply the streets, looking like they are straight out of a movie from the 1930s.”
She also raves about the capital’s “warm weather in February” which allowed her to go for a stroll along the Tagus as she visited monuments like the Padrão dos Descobrimentos (Monument of the Discoveries), Belém Tower and Monastery of Jerónimos.
And like many hundreds of thousands before her, she queued to enjoy one of the capital’s famous ‘pastéis de Belém’ custard tarts.
She concluded, as she ate her little delicacy with a strong black coffee, that she “knew for certain that beginning my Portuguese journey in Lisbon was the right decision”.
