Guimarães is where Portugal starts. Afonso Henriques was born here, fought the Battle of São Mamede here in 1128, and used the town as the base from which he detached the county of Portucale from León and made himself king. Every guidebook says so, usually with the words carved on a wall near the station: here Portugal was born. Which makes the shrine standing in the middle of the town’s oldest square slightly awkward, because it commemorates a battle Portugal fought on Castilian soil, in a Castilian dynastic cause, to defend a Castilian king.

Lisbon has become a predictable answer to the question of where to take a laptop and disappear for a month. The reasons are practical: the timezone sits at UTC+1, which means European standups are manageable and US async is workable by evening. The cost of living remains below Western European norms. The city has fiber. None of that explains why it actually works. What explains it is the rhythm. Lisbon runs on a schedule that tolerates long midday pauses without apologizing for them.