Penha de França, Bairro das Novas Nações, Olivais: Colonial toponyms in Lisbon

Penha de França, Bairro das Novas Nações, Olivais: Colonial toponyms in Lisbon In Lisbon, we can identify around 250 streets that, in one way or another, have colonial associations. The names given to these streets not only reflect the city’s changes but also constitute a linguistic, cultural, and political legacy of European expansion and, in particular, of Portuguese colonialism. This connection between Lisbon’s toponymy and the legitimization of the state, whose aim was to materialize and root a certain historical memory in the population (by celebrating it), is in many ways linked to the evolution of the country’s political events.

City

11.06.2026 | by João Pedro George

Explain again what it means to be Portuguese? Dino D' Santiago's opera

Explain again what it means to be Portuguese? Dino D' Santiago's opera   Adilson is the story of a rootless Creole. A childhood friend of Dino’s, the dancer Adilson Correia Duarte, known as Bonny and in the neighborhood as Dafos, arrived in Quarteira at eleven months old but remains a stranger in the country where he learned to walk and from which he has left only once. Adilson has never tasted the pitanga of Angola, never set foot in Cape Verde, and belongs to all three places at once without any formal ties to any of them. Angola, Cape Verde, and Quarteira are, thus, a triple belonging without recognition. Like so many other children of immigrants, he lives in this paradox: “I’ve never been there, I’ve always been here, where I’m a stranger.”

I'll visit

28.05.2026 | by Marta Lança