Why are all the streets of Portugal so beautiful?

[mitalit]

Even a forgotten street in Portugal has a beautiful cobblestone. I suppose this these streets are really expensive and difficult to do, Portugal has a lot of taste for details
In Spain we simply use an ugly tile, and in the rest of Europe cement or asphalt.

[Brás Garcia de Mascarenhas]

Even a forgotten street in Portugal has a beautiful cobblestone. I suppose this these streets are really expensive and difficult to do, Portugal has a lot of taste for details
In Spain we simply use an ugly tile, and in the rest of Europe cement or asphalt.

Just a fun fact but the Portuguese cobblestone pavement can be traced back to a rhino, believe it or not. In 1500 our King Dom Manuel I of Portugal received a rhinoceros as a gift from Afonso de Albuquerque, the founder of the Império Português do Oriente and the animal at the time was a celebrity in Lisbon and all of Europe. Albrecht Dürer even made a famous sketch of the rhino.

The rhino would parade along the processions during the festivities in Lisbon but the problem was that due to its size it ended up getting his paws and everybody else covered in mud, so the King ordered to be built what was likely the first paved street in Lisbon in granite.

This was not however the first artistic pavement that Portugal is known for (that came later after the earthquake that devastated Lisbon) but still the first origin.

It is an art form, the same way as walking on it in high heels is an art that only Portuguese women have mastered and should not be attempted by foreigners.

[Cristiano viejo]

Portuguese architecture is ultra beautiful. For sure among the most beautiful in Europe.

[Damião de Góis]

I wouldn't say the presence of cobblestones make the streets more beautiful. For example here's a street in historical center of Guimarães, i believe many streets in Spain look like this:



Downtown Lisbon looks pretty but i wouldn't say it's because of cobblestones:





A random street with cobblestones elsewhere just looks like many others: