Travel with Rolando Chang Barrero

Abandoned Building Lisbon: Stolen Tiles and a City in Transition On my way up through  Misericórdia  toward the ever-reliable beauty of  Miradouro de São Pedro de Alcântara , I stopped in front of a building that refuses to be ignored. On my way up through Misericórdia toward the ever-reliable beauty of Miradouro de São Pedro de Alcântara , I stopped in front of a building that refuses to be ignored. Three stories tall, its intricate iron varandas still stretch outward with a kind of quiet pride—delicate, detailed, and slowly surrendering to rust. They speak of a time when craftsmanship mattered, when even the threshold of a home carried intention. But below them, the story fractures. The original azulejos—those iconic Portuguese tiles that once wrapped the façade in rhythm and narrative—are now interrupted. Not by time alone, but by intervention. You can see where they’ve been stolen, pried out in patches, leaving behind wounds that expose the raw underlayer of the b...

Seven stays. Seven very different experiences : A Journey Through Portugal with Booking.com by Rolando Chang Barrero Choosing to skip traditional hotels, I opted for something more personal—immersing myself in smaller communities using Booking.com. This approach opened doors to authentic neighborhoods, attentive hosts, and unique spaces—some charming, some challenging. Each stay revealed the virtues of living locally—from the joys of true cultural immersion to the quirks that test your patience—forming an unforgettable patchwork of travel tales. Portugal unfolded for me not just through landscapes and sunsets, but through doorways—seven of them, to be exact. Each stay became its own chapter, each host a fleeting character, each room a stage where comfort, chaos, charm, and surprise took turns performing. It began in Lisbon, in a flat tucked into the historic folds of the city near the Miradouro de Santa Catarina . The kind of place that makes you feel like you’ve arrived exactly where ...