Last week went to Lisbon. I've been avoiding it because I knew it wasn't going to be anything of what I remember, and it was much worse than I expected.
It saddens me so much. It's like Barcelona but even worse.
But this phenomenon is now even happening in my mid-sized spanish city. It's starting, but there are already loads of foreigners buying everything, places I used to go closing because they can't compete with chains that are contacting landlords for paying x2 for the same spot, etc.
I've talked a lot with my girlfriend about this. The lifestyle we have is not going to be possible anymore in a few years. Quality of food is dropping like a rock while prices go up, the average rent in my area is already 2.5x of what I'm currently paying, when both of us are under 20k/y, so mostly just waiting to be kicked out.
But it's not only about getting priced out or the culture loss. I work in IT and my GF works two jobs, one as freelance designer (impossible to get into UX) and another in hospitality. And people treats her like shit. She works from home and I can hear the calls sometimes and the level of entitlement and rudeness is incredible. And she's, in theory, dealing with that kind of premium tourism that gets talked a lot, this city is far from the trashy drunken visitors typical in the mediterranean.
Yet there you go, your well off central europeans treating her like shit, trying to get refunds with lies, and the whole package.
But that's not everything. It gets more personal for me, because I used to go with a friend to a lot of language exchange meetups. The've grown in popularity, but also the kind of people that goes now completely changed. We don't go anymore because it's not fun anymore.
We've discussed about this, and between the comments in the FB groups complaining that we don't want to be their friends, and the feeling in the meetups that we're there to provide entertaining to this people, I think it's over.
This experience matches with my Portuguese friends. They've warned us about this, and I worry this place is going to go through the same and I will have to go, leaving friends and family to go somewhere else. Not fun.
Every time I see this city mentioned in travel or lifestile post in YT or Instagram I know what's coming.