| Bars/clubs |
Lux – The best nightclub in town, whose owner
is John Malkovich (some say). In the summer it is best from
5am until 8am. Young crowd and all the artists and fashionmongers
fill up the venue. Straight and gay mixed. Chill out music.
Another must!
website...
Finalmente – Very small bar for the
'ugliest and dirtiest'. The best travesties show in town:
a must at 2:30am. If you like to have fun while being squeezed
on all sides, don’t miss it.
Portas Largas (Rua da Atalaia 105. Tel: 346-6379)
– An old tavern that has become the hallmark of gay
life in Lisbon. You get the drinks and come outside into the
narrow street crammed with all sorts of people. First stop
after dinner.
Kremlin – Extreme underground. Young
crowd: mixed. Loud modern music, visited by cute young men.
THE hotspot after 3 AM.
website...
At Sehmo Ceu (Seventh Heaven, Travessa de
Espera 54. Tel: 436-6471) you can mingle with the local, internationally
informed young set.
Or you might try the most popular club in the Bairro, the
highly fashionable and always packed house-music temple called
Fragil (Rua da Atalaia 128. Tel: 346-9578).
website...
If you want to stay in the neighborhood, you can end your
night at the after-hours Capitan Kirk (Rua
do Norte 129), but the gay crowds generally prefer to move
west and continue partying at the Finalmente,
a seedy, yet genuinely fun transvestite club at Rua da Palmeira
38 (Tel: 347-2652).
In the same area, roughly around the underground station
of Rato, you'll find some clubs that will offer you the
chance to experience the core of Lisbon's gay nightlife.
This mainly revolves around Trumps (Rua
da Imprensa Nacional 104b. Tel: 397-1059) and Bric-a-Bar
(Rua Cecilio de Sousa 82-84.Tel: 348-971). Located close
to each other, both bars are open until late; the choice
for one over the other depends on your taste in type of
crowd, style, and atmosphere. Trummps is more trendy and
high tech; Bric-a-Bar is slightly less cutting edge, but
it is equally fun and certainly more cruisy.
Among the intimate bars where you can chat and drink, only
one caters to a specific crowd.
Tattoo (Rua de Sao Marcal 15. Tel: 395-2726)
is a spot for mustachioed gents past their forties and the
men who love them. Three other bars worth a visit are Principado
(Rua Cecilio de Sousa 94a); the tiny, quaint Aguas
no Bico (Rua de Sao Marcal 170. Tel: 347-2830);
and the average Bar 106 (Rua de Sao Marcal
106. Tel: 342-7373).
Telephone with prefix 00351-
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| Restaurants |
Pap'a corda (Rua da Atalaia 57. Tel: 346-4811)
is a stylish and lovely gay restaurant. Under the light
of the magnificent chandeliers that hang above, you and
a friend can dine for bout $50 (excluding wine).
More expensive, but certainly worth a visit for a luscious
meal or just an aperitif after a day on the nearby beach,
is the Alcantara cafe-Restaurant (Rua Maria
Holstein 15. Tel: 362-1226). Here a dinner for two may cost
as much as $100. The charming decor, made of steel statues
and velvet curtains, and the good food attracts fashionable
crowds.
You may like the spot so much that you'll want to stay for
the club Alcantara Mar , (Tel: 363-6432)
reachable through a long catwalk-like corridor. There's
a separate entrance for those who are going to the club
only at Rua da Conzinha Economica 11.
For more moderately priced dinners and lunches, try Primavera
(Travessa da Espera 34. Tel: 320-477). This nongay tourist
spot has a lunch menu in the $20 region.
Or enjoy Portuguese dishes at the gay-owned Bota
Alta (Rua de Queimada. Tel: 347-959).
Equally gay, though not publicized as such, is Poe-te-na-Bicha
(Travessa Aqua da Flor 36. Tel: 342-5924). It, too, features
Portuguese cuisine.
Ali a Papa – in the same street as
Portas Larges. Good Moroccan food in a very small and tiny
restaurant but overprized. Owned by two lesbians.
Bica no Sapato – Opposite Lux. Trendy
and very expensive. Owned by Malkovich.
Cervejarias – They serve mostly beer
and shellfish (all over the town). The cheapest and good
food.
Cervejaria Trindade – Restaurant
at Bairro Alto. It is open until 1am. Very cheap and quite
good Portuguese food. Situated in one of the oldest brewery
buildings in Lisbon. Decorated with beautiful tiles. A must!
Mama Rossa – Italian food, nice atmosphere
and service. Quite good food with large gaycrowd.
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| Touristical information |
Lisbon has grown famous for its nightlife. It
has that well-siesta-ed Mediterranean vibrancy, where things
are only just getting started at 2am, and the bars stay open
for, well, nigh-on forever. Way past my bedtime at least. The
bars and clubs of the Bairro Alto district spill out higgledy-piggledy
on to the pavement - look up and you'll see shuttered windows
and tiny balconies, washing strung out to dry, criss-crossing
the narrow streets like macrame. The streets themselves are
all crazy, cobbled, practically vertical. Wholly inappropriate
for walking in high heels. At one point, as we trot between
bars, we are faced with a slope of such ludicrous perpendicularity
that I consider kicking off my heels and sliding down on my
backside.
The revival of the Docas area began in the early 90s. A dressing-up
which has included bars and restaurants and nightclubs galore.
Among them is Doca 6, a leisurely, lunchy sort of restaurant.
The Blues Café serves up Cajun food, yet is a bit All
Bar One-ish - albeit with an American twang. On the nightclub
front, Queen's is a large, warehouse venue, where a lot of ladies
in short, sparkly outfits are hired to dance on the bars. There's
a nice vibe, and it's full to the gills, but it lacks the glamour
and the swagger of Lux. |
| more... |
| Sauna's |
| Lisbon's saunas, unfortunately, are not really
what one would call a treat. They often show hetero porn films,
and most of the time they do not gather what one would call
a "select clientele." But for your information, they
are Spartacus (Largo Trinidade Coelo 2, every
day from 3-9 p.m., Viriato (Rua do Teihal 4b, open every day
1p.m.-2 a.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 1 p.m.-6 a.m.), and Grecus
(Rua do Teihal 77, open everyday except Sunday and bank holidays
noon-midnight). |
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