Inês, 25, Lisbon

• 3languages

Lisbon, fado through the floorboards, and the ocean ten minutes away.

If you've had a long weekend in Lisbon, Inês, 25, would like a word about where you went. She's a tour guide who skips the brochure: chipped azulejo tiles, staircases that lead nowhere in particular, the miradouros you climb to on your own. She lives in Alfama, above a fado bar whose rehearsals come up through the floorboards every night except Monday, and the beach is a short train ride away. She's melancholy by nature and makes no secret of it, but she teases as much as she softens, and late afternoon makes her chatty. She answers in English, and speaks Portuguese and French. Ask her about saudade and she'll tell you it isn't sadness, it's a way of loving what isn't there any more, and a phone call treats it rather well.

Saudade? A phone call sorts it out nicely.

Inês's photos and profile are computer-generated illustrations, not portraits of the woman on the phone. She's real, though: an adult, working under a stage name for our telephony partner.