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Street Art at the Alcântara Railway Station

Lisbon's Alcântara del Mar railway station has quite a large collection of rousing street artworks in its underground tunnels.
The shady peripheral area can be dangerous at night, but I wandered out to see this "real life museum".

The Alcântara-Mar station is in a run-down area of peripheral Lisbon. In the southwestern part of the city, close to Rio Tejo and the majestic rust-red 25 de Abril Bridge.

I got there at dusk, after having a refreshing gin tonic under (that) gigantic bridge.

This is the favourite time of shady creeps who sometimes roam around like packs of wolves
(if you know what I mean...).

This is exactly one of those areas where you shouldn't be alone when the night falls.

Especially if you're a foreigner... Like myself.

Especially if you have valuables on you, like a big DSLR camera with a long lens, like the one I was carrying to immortalize the murals.

At that time, the Alcântara-Mar station's tunnels felt deserted. I only encountered 3 people, two of whom belonged to the creep category.
It was too quiet, I was getting suspicious...

These were actually the tunnels right under the train tracks. The urban art makes the walls look good, but the station above was a wreck.

It didn't feel safe at all, so I kept looking over my shoulders in the beautiful "tunnel gallery". My sense of security was very very low and I kept looking over my shoulders from time to time.

Of course, there is beautiful street art in Lisbon elsewhere as well.

Of course, during my hunt for street art, I was aware of Lisbon's lurking risks and dangers.

It's a beautiful city, yes... Enjoyable, yes... Great family destination and romantic, even.
Of course!

But, if you're traveling with your family and naively walking around, not knowing what lurks around you, then you're putting yourself at risk.

Then again, there's nothing to be terrified of.
It's generally quite safe. Eastern Europe as well as southern Europe's Italy and Greece are far more dangerous. Couldn't compare Lisbon with Naples or Athens.

But, if you're a solo traveler and you like deep urban explorations and, especially if you're female - then it's perhaps better to stay away from certain areas.

Like Alcântara... or, the other shady parts of the night life districts. Especially during the evening and night hours.

But, it's exactly these parts of the city that hide what I burn for: street art.

The run-down neighbourhoods are parallel societies produce treasures that you will rarely find in the trendy central parts of cities.

Still, Alcântara is not a slum. Right now, I'm talking about the ominous Alcântara-Mar railway station.

As I was photographing, I encountered another guy taking pictures of the walls.

He was local, Portuguese.

He said he was taking the pictures for creating slideshows at home. He simply plays the slideshows, because they relax him.

Suddenly, a shady creep appears running high-speed like a rabid leopard.
I waited until he got closer and jumped away suddenly, holding on tight to my camera.

He screamed and ran away.
Nothing else happened...

I recall that already from 50 m away, I could see the guy take up maximum speed (for no obvious reason). He was probably focusing on my DSLR.

They'd just "grab and run"...

But, as a precautionary measure, I always wrap the camera's strap around my wrist.

But now, I decided to move away as well, avoiding a potential fight.

The entire running across the empty station tunnel with no trains coming, nor leaving seemed senseless... There's no intense traffic there anyway and no trains arrived for a long time.

Still, I was able to enjoy much of the street art. My photos depict only a small portion, less than 5 % of what was there (imagine!), but when second creep appeared and the local guy said "goodbye" to me, I didn't want to wait for potentially worse "surprises".

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