Good morning, Lisbon. It's Monday, 4 May. Twenty-one degrees and sunny. Sardine season opens today. Summer is coming.

🌬️ AIR QUALITY: 22 (Good).

🗞️ TOP STORY

FUEL PRICES ARE JUMPING THIS MORNING. HERE'S WHAT'S BEHIND IT AND WHAT THE GOVERNMENT CAN DO ABOUT IT.

If you filled up over the long weekend, good timing. If you didn't, here's what you're looking at from today. According to the Automobile Club of Portugal, diesel is forecast to rise 9.5 cents per litre this week, bringing the average to around €2.05. Petrol is up 6 cents, averaging around €1.99. Both are among one of the sharpest single-week increases of 2026.

The reason is the same story this newsletter has been following since late February: the Strait of Hormuz. Around 20% of the world's oil and roughly half of Europe's jet fuel normally transits the strait, and the US naval blockade that took effect in mid-April has kept it effectively closed. Brent crude has been trading between $93 and $101 a barrel for the past three weeks, well above the assumptions in Portugal's 2026 state budget. The ceasefire was extended last month with no deadline and no talks scheduled. Until something changes in the Gulf, the pressure on fuel prices is structural, not temporary.

Portugal has a mechanism for this. When the weekly price increase on diesel exceeds 10 cents, the government can activate a temporary cut to the ISP (the fuel and energy products tax) to offset the impact. This happened in March, when a 3.55 cent per litre ISP reduction on diesel was applied. With this week's diesel increase forecast at 9.5 cents, the mechanism is right on the threshold. If the final numbers come in at 10 cents or above, expect the government to announce a temporary ISP cut. If they come in just below, you absorb the full increase.

Two things worth knowing. First, the ISP mechanism only applies to diesel, not petrol. The logic is that diesel powers commercial transport, which feeds into the cost of everything else. Petrol drivers don't get the same protection. Second, the final price at the pump varies by station, brand, and location. The figures above are national averages. In central Lisbon, expect to pay slightly above.

What you can actually do about it: if you drive diesel, filling up later in the week may save you nothing — the increase takes effect today. If you drive petrol, prices were lower last week and are higher now. If you're on a variable-rate electricity contract, the same energy market conditions that are pushing fuel up will show up on your next bill, lagged by 30 to 60 days.

Bottom line: The pump price is a direct consequence of a conflict most people stopped reading about two weeks ago. It hasn't gone away. It's just moved from the front page to your fuel receipt.

⚡ QUICK HITS

Sardine season opens today. The annual fishing season begins from midnight with a quota of 33,446 tonnes. Fresh sardines will start appearing in Lisbon's markets and restaurants over the next week or two. If you've never bought fresh Portuguese sardines: head to Mercado da Ribeira or your nearest neighbourhood market, look for firm bodies, clear eyes, and bright silver skin. Grill them whole on high heat with nothing but coarse salt. Put bread underneath to catch the drippings. Eat outside. This is not complicated cooking. It's the best thing you'll eat all month, and it's the unofficial start of Lisbon summer. The countdown to Santos Populares in June starts now.

The Concertação Social reconvenes on Wednesday. Social partner negotiations on the Trabalho XXI labour reform restart May 7. CGTP secretary-general Tiago Oliveira said at Friday's May Day rally that a new general strike remains "one of the forms of struggle on the table." Both major union confederations have rejected the package. Montenegro has said the bill goes to parliament regardless. Wednesday's meeting will determine whether there's any remaining room for agreement or whether this heads straight to a legislative standoff.

Portugal's finance minister has acknowledged the surplus may not hold. Miranda Sarmento told Eurozone finance ministers last week that Portugal could run a deficit in 2026 if circumstances require it. The four-year surplus run has been the government's headline fiscal achievement. The storms in January and February, combined with the Iran war's impact on energy costs, have made the path "very narrow again," in his words.

🍽️ SPOT OF THE DAY

GELATARIA NANNARELLA (SÃO BENTO

Twenty-one degrees, first Monday in May, and the ice cream season is officially open. Nannarella, on Rua Nova da Piedade in São Bento, has been the answer to this kind of afternoon since 2013, and the queue outside the door is the surest sign that Lisbon's warm months have arrived.

The shop was opened by Constanza and Filippo, two Romans who'd been living in Lisbon for a couple of years before deciding to do the obvious thing and make gelato. The obvious thing turned out to be one of the best-loved food businesses in the city. Everything is made on site, daily, with 100% natural ingredients, no colourings, no preservatives. The milk is Vigor — the same brand on most Portuguese breakfast tables — and the fruit is sourced locally. Portuguese ingredients, Italian technique, and a commitment to freshness that means the flavours rotate with the seasons and whatever's good that week.

The system is different from most gelaterias. You pay for the size of the cup or cone, not the number of flavours. The gelato is served with a spatula rather than a scoop. This means you can mix three or four flavours into a single small cone without paying extra, which is both generous and dangerous because it makes the decision harder rather than easier.

The flavours to seek out: the basil, which is infused for six hours and tastes like a herb garden in frozen form. The mango, made exclusively from orange mangoes, intensely coloured and intensely flavoured. The pistachio, which has no colourant and actually tastes like pistachios. The raspberry sorbet, made with Portuguese-grown fruit. And if they're running the grapefruit and ginger, order it before it disappears — it was the sleeper hit of last summer and tends to sell out by mid-afternoon.

There's no seating inside. The shop is a tiny counter and that's it. But there's a small park right next door where everyone takes their cone, and eating Nannarella gelato on a bench in São Bento while watching members of parliament walk past is one of the quieter pleasures of living in this city.

→ If you need convincing that gelato is a good idea on a sunny day ←

Rua Nova da Piedade 64A, São Bento. Open daily, noon to 10pm. A 10-minute walk from Bairro Alto. They also run a travelling cart in Chiado, usually parked in front of Vista Alegre — worth finding if you're on that side of the city.

Insider tip: Go between noon and 2pm on a weekday and you'll skip the queue entirely. After 4pm on a sunny day, expect a 15-to-20-minute wait. It's worth it, but if patience isn't your thing, the early afternoon window is the move.

📅 WHAT'S ON

• Eros Ramazzotti (Wed 6 May, MEO Arena, doors 7:30pm) "Una Storia Importante" world tour. Tickets via Ticketline.

• Moura Olive Oil Fair (Wed 7 to Sat 10 May, Moura, Alentejo) Annual celebration of Portuguese azeite. Tastings, cooking demos, producers. Day trip from Lisbon.

• Quiz Knights English Trivia (Thu 7 May) Free entry, €50 prize, all in English. Join via Meetup.

• Lewis OfMan (Fri 8 May, LAV Lisboa Ao Vivo, doors 8pm) French electronic pop. Tickets via Fever.

• Vila Alva Wine Village (Sat 9 May, Cuba, Alentejo) Tastings and long-table dinners under the stars in a small Alentejo village. Worth the drive.

• IndieLisboa (ongoing, Cinema São Jorge and other venues, through 10 May) 241 films. Final week. Tickets at indielisboa.com.

• Fátima Pilgrimage (Wed 13 May) Major annual pilgrimage.

• TEDxMarvila (Sun 24 May, 10am to 7pm) Lisbon's English-language TEDx. Theme: "What is Love?"

• Todd Webb in Portugal (ongoing, Gulbenkian, through 27 July)

• From Plate to Print (ongoing, Museu do Oriente, through 9 August)

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See you tomorrow morning.