As visitor numbers hit record levels in southern Europe, some residents are surrounded entirely by tourist flats

When her husband, who had cancer at the time, took a tumble in the couple’s sixth-floor flat last year, Maria frantically wondered who she could call for help to lift him.

In another building, another era, she might have dashed next door to ask a neighbour. But it wasn’t an option in her 11-unit building in central Lisbon, where tourist flats had proliferated and turned long-term residents into a rarity.