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Lisbon's Urban Fauna and its Shady Side

I adore Lisbon, but there is a shady side, a dark and dangerous parallel society that poses risks to the naive travelers.
Shady creeps, thieves and borrachos roam in certain areas and they did give me the creeps...

I felt overall safe in Lisbon, but it's good to know that certain areas are dangerous and that Portugal isn't quite the safest country in Europe.

Lisbon is not Naples, it's not Athens. The latter are terribly more dangerous and when I was there, they both gave me the creeps.

But before traveling to Lisbon, you must be aware of the specific risks.

Here are my experiences, things I've heard from locals and things I've read...

The first thing I noticed were the announcements through the speakers of metro vehicles and stations, which warn passengers of theft and ask them to take extra care of their belongings.

Especially when you get on or off the public transportation vehicles and especially on trams and metros, you should be extremely careful.

Thieves generally push and shove. And then they take your belongings of cut your bags and extract your wallet, phone or whatever they fancy.

I had a few discussions of locals who told about the frequent cases of belonging-snatchings. They just grab and run... not hesitating to use force, especially if you're on a shady street and all alone.

I didn't see police at all anywhere during my stay in Lisbon.

I honestly didn't even know how Portuguese police look like, because I encountered the shady creeps and suspect-looking time wasters.

Pickpockets and thieves are on issue... But there are drug-dealers who sell their "merchandise" shamelessly in public, in front of everyone.
And, this happens in the middle of the day in central Lisbon.

I was harassed at least a dozen times by drug-selling shady creeps in the middle of the day and they did the same with a bunch of other travelers.

I heard stories of police collaborating with the drug dealers or, they shun what's obvious and happens in front of everyone's eyes.

Lisbon is the only place in the World where I saw drugs being sold in the middle of the day in public and no, it's not legal in Portugal either!

I recommend you categorically reject anyone who's trying to sell you anything besides travel services, souvenirs or inviting you into a restaurant.

Lisbon's taxi drivers also have a terrible reputation.

Beware of taxi rip-offs in Portugal overall. Lisbon is one of the worst places from this point-of-view.

I had a taxi coaster ride earlier in Portugal, that happened in Funchal, Madeira.

They overcharge, they take you on long taxi coaster rides and so on and so forth...

Plus: in Lisbon some taxi drivers cheat passengers by showing them a list of prices to various destinations. Never fall for this trick!

The only legal way to travel by taxi in Lisbon is with a working taximeter. Provided that the taximeter itself isn't manipulated...

As for the "urban fauna"...

It includes the shady creeps, the tricksters and stray borrachos (it's a port city, you know and these places are full of homeless drunk people).

Before going to Porto, I saw a bunch of homeless people in the Largo Sã Domingos.

Although I normally feel sorry for them, it was funny to see they were holding real meetings, singing and laughing together. Obviously, many were drunk.
Utterly broken-down people with filthy clothes torn on them.

A particularly odd figure was a German long-bearded past-middle age man. (Yes, German hobo in Lisbon!).

I don't know how someone from Germany can become homeless in Portugal. A travel mishap? Worked in Portugal and lost his job? Survived a tragic accident?

He was visibly disturbed mentally.
He kept talking, shouting constantly in German - as if he was preaching religious texts about how God made the World.

I started thinking about how terrible it is for these people who were probably living normal lives before, but they'd slipped out of society.
To be a foreigner who slips out of society and gets onto the streets must be terrible.

Buy don't get too terrified, Lisbon is far safer than cities in Latin-America, just beware of the specific risks.

Lisbon has many dangerous areas and I'll just name a few:

Bairro Alto (the night-life district is especially dangerous at night), the Martim Moniz area, Chelas (mostly house blocks, residential area), Baixa (the city core is full of drug dealers), Cais do Sodré, the peripheral areas where large houseblock residential neighbourhoods.

Portugal is not among the most dangerous countries in the EU, but it's not among the safest ones either. You can check the statistics on Eurostat for curiosity.

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