Notes from a Lisbon Stairwell

The stairway from Rua dos Remédios to my rented room in Alfama has two hundred and eleven steps. I counted them on the first night, out of breath, and then every night after that, out of habit.

A city measured in steps

Lisbon is a city that makes you pay for the view. Every miradouro is earned, and the payment is always the same: your lungs, your calves, a pause halfway up where you pretend to admire a doorway while you recover.

Those pauses became the point. I learned the stairwell the way you learn a piece of music — the cat on step forty, the laundry that changed colour every Tuesday, the old man who played cards on an upturned crate and nodded at me by the second week.

You cannot hurry up a hill. The city decides your pace, and it is kinder than you would choose.

Field kit

• A pocket notebook with squared paper.

• One pencil, sharpened with a knife.

• Comfortable shoes, which I did not bring.

I left after six weeks with a notebook full of small observations and calves I barely recognised. The stairs, I am told, are still there. I hope someone is counting them.