Imperfect Beauty

Hands up if you like perfection.

I'm a no. Always no to perfection; it's too shiny, too finished, too...perfect. Nothing good can come from perfection. There is no soul in perfection. Imperfection is where the real life is.

Lisbon is a great place to visit for fans of imperfection. Don't get up in arms here Lisbonites - what I'm saying is that it's more beautiful because of the imperfections: the chipped tiles, the graffiti all over, the scaffolding hiding architectural works of art, the broken down trams, the boarded up windows, the perennial renovations. They are much more interesting. They show the daily grind of life in Lisbon. I love Lisbon!

Sure, I expected to see a good few tiles around Lisbon - it's part of the package. You wouldn't go to New York and not expect to see any yellow taxis. But I hadn't anticipated the aesthetic love I felt for the small ceramic squares to be quite so strong. They make everything look more interesting. Even when a splash of modern spray paint invades the barricade of tiles, it only augments the pleasure radiated by the colours and patterns. I had to stop myself taking photos of every tiled building - why do you need so many pictures of patterned tiles woman?

Lisbon seems to run on making do. If there's a problem, an imperfection, don't worry. Leave it there, cover it up (or don't) and move on. The tram we were on had to stop, we were transferred onto a bus in literally one minute to continue our journey. A grandiose, colonial mansion is broken, leave it and move on. Leave it to its own devices. There are many such abandoned buildings strewn around the streets of Lisbon, all adorned with graffiti tags, broken windows and the creeping invasion of nature's greenery. I have no doubt that they are also filled with a countless number of stories and fragments of people's lives that they will never share.

This was one of my favourite buildings. If you peer through the gated walls you can see what must have once been a wonderful house. Does anyone still live there? Are the walls still sanctuary to someone? What will happen to its history? What will happen to its future?

Finally, we need to talk about the most imperfect and at the same time perfect things to be found in Lisbon. To be fair, they were one of my main reasons for travelling there in the first place: the Portuguese custard tart.

It is quite possibly, the greatest feat of culinary engineering ever mastered.

No, it does not look pretty. It doesn't look like one of the faultless delicacies you'd see in a Parisian patisserie or an utterly immaculate cream concoction from an Austrian bakery. The custard tart is not uniform. It is speckled. It is a bit burnt. It has uneven borders. It has a crusty, flaky edge ready to drop off. But these 'faults' are what makes it so great. Excuse me a moment whilst I wipe the drool away from just thinking about these delicious devils.

These features that first seem like imperfections melt away into a gooey, flaky gloop of sweet sweet goodness. A mouthful of tart will give you the heady mix of soft crunch and glutinous goo that will make you want to send for all your belongings and set down roots within walking distance from one of Lisbon's many pastelarias.

Lisbon is the European capital of flawed beauty and, in mastering this, it has a warm, welcoming heartbeat pervading every single aspect of life within the city, from the tumbling buildings to the admirable irregularities in the food. Everything about Lisbon is a little less than perfect; but perfect is pointless.

I never want to taste perfection if this is the taste of battered, crumbling, but most of all, loved, imperfection.