It involves a lot of walking, enjoying the views from the lookouts, driving around the surrounding castles, eating custard tarts and washing them down with coffee and green wine.
The city has relatively few major museums and significant architectural masterpieces, because in 1755 it was destroyed by an earthquake and subsequent tsunami. Lisbon lost its royal palace, many cathedrals and treasures brought back from various countries by Portuguese explorers.
For those who prefer walking to museums, this is a good thing. I think Lisbon is the perfect place for a spring vacation. You can easily walk around the city and its surrounding attractions while enjoying the spring sunshine and beautiful views.
In the spring of 2019, I took a short vacation to Lisbon. My husband and I spent 8 days in the city. During this time we had time to see the city itself, go to Porto for one night, visit Sintra, Cascais and Cape Roca. I will tell you what to see in Lisbon and how much such a trip costs.
How to get there
Lisbon Airport is about 30 minutes by metro from the city center. The cab ride is even shorter, about 20 minutes. Lisbon is not a very large city.
Where to live
My husband and I rented a simple apartment through Booking in the spring of 2018, because we planned to stay in it only overnight. We decided not to overpay for a beautiful and trendy apartment. Our apartment was close to the coast and the Cais do Sodre train station.
The apartments have a very convenient location. The apartments are close to the seafront, bus station, Cais Do Sodre station, where trains leave for Belém and Cascais. Right behind the house is the Time Out Market, where many different cafes are gathered under one roof. Nearby were a nice breakfast cafe – Fabrica Coffee Shop – and many locations for dinner. The entire downtown area from here is easy to walk from here.
There were some downsides. Cais do Sodre is a party neighborhood. In the evenings and at night it is noisy, there are a lot of young people, people drinking and partying right on the street. I am not embarrassed by this, but amused, but for people with children it is better to choose another neighborhood. For example, you can stay somewhere near Lisbon’s main cathedral in the Alfama district, in the Chiado and Santa Catarina districts, or a little further from the center – in the Mouraria district.
Lisbon Attractions
You can plan your trip like this:
- Allocate 2-4 days to Lisbon itself, including outlying areas like Belém;
- 2 days for a trip to Porto;
- 1-2 days for the castles of Sintra and a trip to Cape Roca.
If you have more time, you can also stop by, for example, Nazare, the city where the highest waves on the planet have been recorded. You can go to the Serra da Estrela National Park, simply drive along the Atlantic coast, go to neighboring Seville or fly to Madeira or the Azores.
We traveled to Lisbon for a week. Our travel plan looked like this. It seems to be both a busy but rather relaxed itinerary.
Quay and Place de la Commerce – the square used to be home to the royal palace and the opera house, but all of them, along with other buildings, were destroyed by the earthquake and tsunami of 1755. Now it is home to the Arc de Triomphe and the Column Pier, where delegations of dignitaries used to dock. From here you can enjoy a beautiful view of the Tagus River, and it is convenient to start exploring the center of Lisbon from here: if you go through the arch to Augusta Street, you will get to the most touristy area with stores, cafes, souvenir stores.
The Santa Justa elevator is an elevator built in 1902 that connects one street in Lisbon to another on the hill. Lisbon has a very uneven landscape – you constantly have to walk uphill or downhill. The elevator is made as if in steampunk style, it is used only by tourists, there is a queue. It costs 5 € to ride it. The elevator is located near Augusta Street.
Viewing platforms in Portugal are called miradouros. There are many of them in Lisbon because the city has many hills. The most popular ones are Miradouro de São Pedro de Alcântara, Miradouro das Portas do Sol, Miradouro de Santa Luzia. The sites offer a picturesque view of the Tagus River and the red roofs of the center of Lisbon.
The Alfama district is the historic center of Lisbon. It occupies a large hill and consists of many narrow, intertwining streets that are very interesting to walk along. Major attractions include the Lisbon Cathedral, the Roman Theater Museum, the Santa Luzia Lookout, the Pantheon and St. George’s Castle.
The Castle of St. George is a fortress in the center of Lisbon, the historical center of the city. It was once home to the Romans, Visigoths and Moors – all those who conquered Lisbon. The thing that struck me about the fortress is that they pour wine for everyone here. You can grab a glass and go enjoy the views from the inside observation deck of the castle. Imagine such a thing in the Kremlin! A ticket to the castle costs 10 €.
The yellow streetcar is one of the symbols of Lisbon. The most popular route is No. 28, it passes almost all the central sights of the city and passes almost the entire Alfama district. The streetcar is written about in all guidebooks, so it is not easy to get on it: it is always packed with tourists. A ticket costs 3 €.
The funicular is another symbol of the city, along with the yellow streetcar. Funiculars appeared in Lisbon in 1892 and were an important part of the city’s transportation system. Now, of course, they have become more of an attraction for tourists. There are a total of three funiculars in the city: Bica, Lavra and Gloria. The fare from the driver is 3,8 € round trip. We didn’t ride the funiculars, but we looked at them from the outside: it seems to be more interesting than jostling in a cramped cabin.
The Oceanarium is located away from the historical center, next to the Orienti Station. The station itself is a masterpiece of modern architecture, and it is worth coming there just to see it. But the oceanarium will appeal not only to children, but also to adults: we spent about three hours there. The space inside is divided into real climatic zones. The Lisbon Oceanarium is said to have the largest collection of marine species – birds, mammals, fish and other marine organisms – in the world. A ticket for an adult costs 19 €.
Next to the Oceanarium is the northern station of the cable car, Telecabine Lisbon. You can take it at the exit of the Oceanarium and in about 10 minutes you will reach the Park of Nations. This park was built on the site of an industrial zone for the international exhibition “Expo-98”. A round trip on the cable car costs 6 €.
Belém neighborhood and the Geronimos Monastery
Belém is an out-of-the-way district of Lisbon, home to the ancient Jerónimos Monastery, the Monument to the Discoverers, the Maritime Museum, the Belém Tower, the Tropical Garden, the Belém Palace and the Pastéis de Belém with its famous custard cakes. You could easily budget a full day for this neighborhood and still probably won’t visit everything.
It was from this point of the coast that Vasco da Gama’s ships set sail in 1497. Subsequently, other Portuguese navigators set sail from here. Here’s what’s worth seeing.
The Jerónimos Monastery was founded in 1501 after the return of Vasco da Gama. The monks were given an important task: to pray for the seafarers. The main church of the monastery, Santa Maria de Belém, is built in the traditional and very ornate Portuguese Manuelino style, with many pointed turrets, sculptures and lace arches. Vasco da Gama is also buried here.
Ticket to the Geronimos Monastery costs 10 €, it is better to buy it in advance, and arrive early in the morning, because in the afternoon in the monastery there is a big queue, in which you can spend about 40 minutes.
Next to the monastery is the Maritime Museum, a planetarium built with the money of oil magnate Calouste Gulbenkian, and the Carriage Museum. Entrance to the Maritime Museum costs 6.5 €, to the planetarium – 5 €, to the Carriage Museum – 8 €.
We didn’t go to the museums and planetarium, but went straight from the monastery to the seafront to see the huge monument to the discoverers and walk on the stones around the Belém Tower, a fortress that was supposed to protect Lisbon from invaders, but in fact served as a lighthouse most of the time. You can go inside the tower for 6€.
To get to the Belém neighborhood, the easiest way is to take a train at the Cais do Sodre station. They run frequently, about every 15-20 minutes. You need to stop at Belem, it takes about 23 minutes, the ticket costs 1,35 €, you can buy it on the Portuguese Railways website cp.pt or just at the ticket office at the station.
Back from Belém to Lisbon you can also leave by train, or you can walk at least half of the way along the extremely picturesque promenade overlooking the huge April 25 bridge. This bridge crosses the place where the Tagus River flows into the Atlantic Ocean and is very reminiscent of the famous Golden Gate Bridge in California.
The path along the promenade passes MAAT, the Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology. The museum includes a reconstructed power station building from the early 20th century – and it looks extremely impressive from the outside.
After the MAAT Museum, if you have any energy left, you can also go to the LX Factory, a contemporary art center. There are many galleries, cafes, bars and stores there. When we went there, we came to a market that sold a lot of things that are usually sold at such markets: clothes, dishes, decor, jewelry and so on. We didn’t buy anything, but we were curious to see.
Sintra
Sintra is a city about an hour by train from Lisbon. It is famous for the fact that in the vicinity of the city there are many different castles and palaces: the old royal residence – Sintra Palace, Moors Castle, Pena Palace, Regaleira Manor and many others. It is absolutely impossible to visit all of them in a day, so you should either go with an overnight stay, or choose 2-3 castles to visit, arrive early in the morning and strictly adhere to the plan.
The palaces of Sintra are extremely popular with tourists. Rest assured that you will have to wait in lines, the buses that run between the castles will be packed with tourists, and you will have to choose your angle carefully to take a picture. And even despite all this, a trip to Sintra, I think, is a must for everyone who has come to Lisbon.
Sintra’s official website with information on all palaces, castles and villas. If you buy tickets to several palaces at once, you can get a discount
The most popular place in Sintra is the Pena Palace. Bright, light, looking like a cake or a castle from Disney cartoons, it attracts the most tourists both on weekdays and weekends – everyone wants to take pictures of it for Instagram. The palace was built in 1870 in an eclectic style: there are Gothic, Manuelino and something Moorish. It is believed that it was the Pena Palace that inspired Russian millionaire Arseny Morozov to build the famous mansion on Vozdvizhenka Street. Entrance to the Pena Palace costs 14€. We didn’t go to this palace: we were afraid of the queue to enter and the crowd inside.
We only had one day for Sintra. We had time to see two castles: the Moor Castle and the Quinta da Regaleira estate. In between we walked around the town of Sintra Vila and had lunch in a café.
The Moors’ Castle was built, as can be easily guessed, by the Moors during the Arab conquest of Portugal, i.e. in the early Middle Ages. Entrance to the castle costs 8 €. The castle amazes with the views from the walls and the feeling of spaciousness. When walking along the castle walls, the wind blows very strong: a hood, hat or scarf will come in handy. In addition to walking along the walls, you can visit the residential part of the castle, the stables, the cemetery and so on.
I was even more impressed by the architecture of the Quinta da Regaleira Palace. It was built in the early 20th century by the rich man Antonio Monteiro. It is a neo-Gothic castle with ornate bas-reliefs, gargoyles, arches and turrets. The palace has a large territory, on which there is a luxurious park with fountains, grottoes, stone pavilions, secret paths, nooks and – this is the main attraction – an extremely deep Well of Dedication, into which you can descend through a spiral gallery going down.
The original owner of the palace was a member of the Masonic lodge, so many symbols of the Masons and Templars can be found in the palace and park. It was believed that the Masons held religious ceremonies in the well, but this is not documented.
Entrance to the Quinta da Regaleira palace costs €15.
Transportation. You can get to Sintra by train, which leaves from Lisbon’s central station at Rocio Square. The ticket costs 2,25 €, it takes 50 minutes to travel and there are trains every 15-30 minutes.
In Sintra itself, tourist buses run between the castles. They have several routes – you have to choose the right one depending on the castles you want to visit. The buses operate on a hop on – hop off system, a ticket for the whole day costs 15 €, a single trip costs 2.5 €.
Back from Sintra, you can take the same train to Rocio station for 2.25 €, or you can take bus 403 to Cape Roca. From there, take the same bus to Cascais – and take the train back to Cais do Sodre station in Lisbon, i.e. make a big circle. The route for the return depends on how much time you have and when it’s sunset, because Cape Roca is the coolest to arrive at sunset. I will tell you more about the cape further on in the article.
If I were planning a trip to Sintra right now, I would definitely leave two days for it. There are a huge number of places to stay in and around the city. Plus many tourists try to cram a visit to Sintra and Cape Roca into one day, as we did. And it was for nothing: we had to constantly keep an eye on the time and chase to the next point of the route to have time to watch the sunset.
Cape Rock
Cabo da Roca is a cape on the Atlantic coast and the westernmost point of Europe. People come here to watch the sunsets, they are incredibly beautiful. On the downside, there are always a lot of people on Cape Roca, and buses bring whole groups to sunset.
It’s a good idea to check in advance the time the sun sets and arrive at the Cape a few hours before, taking along some sort of snack, drinks, a bottle of vinho verde. Cape Rock has many spectacular picnic spots, with incredible views of the lighthouse and ocean. Take time for a walk and a photo shoot. It’s very windy on the coast: again, a hood or scarf will come in handy.
Cape Roca can be reached by bus number 402, which runs from Cascais to Sintra and back via the cape. The fare is 2,5 € and the ride takes 40 minutes. Buses leave from the train station in both towns. You can return to Lisbon from either town by train.
But much more than Cape Roca, I was impressed by the deserted Ursa Beach, which is about a 40-minute walk from the lighthouse. There are practically no tourists there, because it is a very difficult place to reach: you have to go down for about 20-30 minutes on a rather steep path and be in good physical shape, because then you have to climb back up.
But the beach itself is paradise. It is deserted and incredibly picturesque: huge rocks, golden sand, powerful waves of the Atlantic Ocean and the light of the setting sun. I recommend arriving at Ursa Beach a few hours before sunset to first walk and take pictures here and then walk up to Cape Roca to watch the last minutes of sunset. Then, with a sense of accomplishment, you can take the last bus to Cascais and from there take the 30-minute train back to Lisbon.
Porto
Porto is the second largest city in Portugal. It is a must-see: the city is extremely beautiful, with plenty to see and do – for two days for sure. You can take all three. Porto is closer to the Atlantic Ocean than Lisbon. Many people recommend renting a bike and taking the Duero River promenade straight to the ocean – it takes about a day. Sounds like a plan.
When we planned our trip to Lisbon, we thought we wouldn’t have enough time to see Porto in a week. We ended up going there spontaneously when we realized that we had seen just about all of Lisbon in three days. We bought train tickets, booked a hotel for one night and just went with backpacks, leaving our things in Lisbon apartments.
The high-speed train from Lisbon to Porto takes 3 hours 46 minutes. Trains depart from Santa Apolonia station. You can buy train tickets on the Cp.pt website. We bought tickets practically on the same day, so they were expensive – 37 € per person. If you buy tickets in advance, for example one and a half or two months in advance, they will cost 23 €.
We booked the beautiful Exe Armada Porto hotel in the city center for the night. We paid 94€.
What to see. Porto is famous for its azulejo – stained glass made of white and blue tiles, which are even more numerous here than in Lisbon. If you like azulejo, be sure to see the blue and white Igreja da Santíssima Trindade temple, another temple – the Porto Cathedral and, most importantly, the unimaginably beautiful tiled São Bento train station.
The most famous view of Porto is the waterfront with the Ponte Luís I bridge. You should definitely walk along the promenade with numerous cafes and the bridge itself, and then take the Teleférico de Gaia cable car down to the famous wineries where Port wine was made. A ticket for an adult costs 6 €.
The Douro Valley, on which Porto stands, is the birthplace of port wine. In general, only drinks made here according to a certain technology can be called port wine. The city itself has always been the center of port wine export. Now local wineries offer excursions, tastings and port wine at prices supposedly more attractive than in stores. But we are not interested in port wine, so we didn’t visit the wineries.
Porto has a number of other beautiful temples, viewpoints, monasteries, cafes and nice neighborhoods where you could walk around, but we only managed to walk around the center at a fast pace during the day. On our way back to the hotel we stopped by the famous Livraria Lello bookstore, where some scenes for the Harry Potter movies were filmed. It costs 5€ to enter, and if you buy a book in the store, the 5€ will be deducted from its price. Inside the store is an extremely fancy curved wooden staircase, lots of books and colorful stained glass windows. It all looks very beautiful, but it’s impossible to take a photo without people at all: 3 thousand tourists visit the store per day, so it’s crowded inside.
Money
Portugal has the euro. Almost everywhere accepts cards. I have a Black multi-currency card – I just switched it to a euro account and paid everywhere with it.
It’s better to have cash just in case you need to buy train tickets: for some reason, we didn’t accept cards at the Cascais train station. The same problem can happen if you need to buy a ticket from a machine at the station.
Cash can also come in handy if you want to buy beer, wine or ice cream at a street kiosk – a tabaqueria. There are many of these in the Cais do Sodre neighborhood where we lived. People just buy a glass of wine or beer from the kiosks, sit next to a table or right on the sidewalk, drink and talk. The same kiosks sell simple snacks.
It is also convenient to pay quickly with cash in street cafes where you go for a beer or coffee. There may be a fee for paying a small bill with a card. And of course, cash is useful for tips.
Food
In Lisbon, you should eat sardines, octopus and other seafood, try pâtel de nata cakes, drink green wine, ginjinha and port.
Sardines are very popular in Portugal. Fresh sardines are eaten from June to October; the rest of the time you will probably be served frozen. For sardines, it is best to go to small family-run restaurants, many of which can be found in the streets of Alfama and Mouraria. A dish of sardines costs 10-12 €.
Almost all cafes serve octopus. The standard serving is with potatoes, fried onions and carrots. Octopus costs 14-17 €.
The most famous seafood restaurant in Lisbon among tourists is called Cervejaria Ramiro. The restaurant is praised for its low prices, fresh seafood and large selection, but there are huge queues. We didn’t have time to go to Ramiro because we lived far away.
Dessert – the symbol of Portugal – is, of course, the pâtel de nata, aka pâtel de Belém. They are such baskets of puff pastry filled with baked sweet custard. It’s delicious. According to legend, the recipe for these cakes was invented around the 17th century in the monastery of Geronimos in the community of Santa Maria de Belém, hence the name.
It is believed that the ancient dessert recipe is known only to the very historical pâtelaria in Belene. There are huge queues for the pastries there, we didn’t stand in it. I tried pâtel de nata in ordinary pâtelaria cafes, of which there are many on the streets of Lisbon, as well as in the famous local pastry shop Manteigaria. According to reviews, it is in Manteigaria that they bake the most authentic pâtelles. But to be honest, I liked all the ones I tried, and I didn’t notice much difference between them.
Green wine – aka vinho verde – is a traditional Portuguese young wine. The word “green” in the name is more about the fact that the wine is young. Its color is like a normal white wine. And the taste is unusual – as if slightly carbonated, technically it is considered semi-sparkling. Vinho verde is available everywhere in Lisbon and is inexpensive: from 3-6 € per bottle.
Besides green wine, the traditional drinks of Portugal are strong port wine and sweet ginjinha. I don’t drink port wine, so I won’t tell you anything about it, but the old stand with ginjinha A Ginjinha is located at Largo de São Domingos, 8, near the Rocio square in the center of Lisbon. The sweet 23% strength cherry liqueur is poured into miniature cups made of chocolate. The liqueur is drunk and the glass is snacked on. The whole pleasure costs 1.4 €, if you like it, you can buy a whole bottle of liqueur.
I will recommend a few establishments that we visited in Portugal and were very pleased with.
Coffee and breakfast at Fabrica Coffee Roasters. This is a chain of coffee shops where they not only make regular cappuccino, but also roast coffee, brew it in harios and kemexes, and sell all the related equipment and beans themselves. Fabrica is in both Lisbon and Porto – we had breakfast at these cafes 4 times. Flat white – 3€, aeropress – 3,5€, breakfasts – 5-8€.
Lisboa é Linda is a café of ordinary Portuguese cuisine in Lisbon, with mostly young people: couples and companies. We went there twice because it was just around the corner from our apartment. It is just a normal cafe where you can sit in the evening, have dinner, drink wine. The prices are average, the octopus is excellent.
Time Out Market is a market with cafes. There are many places with all kinds of food, pasta, burgers, grill, there is a pastry store called Manteigaria with pâtel de nata, and a small store with souvenirs and decor. I find it convenient to live near this mart so that there is always somewhere to grab a quick bite to eat. It’s also convenient to have dinner here and then go for a walk along the promenade.
What to bring from Lisbon
Throughout the city there are many stores with Portuguese canned fish: sardines, cod, tuna, salmon and so on. You are guaranteed not to pass by these stores because they are very colorful, made especially for tourists and located near all the sights.
A jar of canned food costs 7-10 €, we bought five, gave something as a gift, ate something ourselves – and it was very tasty.
Portugal also sells a lot of cute decorative items for the home. The local contemporary art center LX Factory hosts a weekend market where you can buy dishes, clothes, jewelry, beautiful ceramics and so on. And it is not consumer goods, but really high quality, but also expensive things. For example, very beautiful items for decoration are made in Laboratorio D’Estorios. I liked the ceramic raven, but it cost more than 200 €.
If you like alcohol, you should bring a bottle of port or vinho verde, or both. You can find simpler and cheaper bottles in any supermarket. If you want more choice than in a supermarket, you should go to Garrafeira Nacional – there are stores in Lisbon and Porto, where there is a very large selection of alcohol at different prices.
Safety
In Portugal, drugs have been decriminalized. And not only, say, marijuana, but also heroin. With the help of such decriminalization, Portugal has dealt with the epidemic of heroin use.
There is a huge number of people walking the streets of the city offering tourists to buy drugs. In the most touristy areas, such as Baixa, men with such offers approached us several times an hour. Of course, they are not selling any drugs, but just some dried herbs. According to reviews on forums, it could be basil seeds.
The police do nothing about these peddlers. An acquaintance of mine, when she arrived in Lisbon, was very frightened by such an offer from a passerby and tried to report it to the nearest policeman. He just threw up his hands.
Memorize
- Lisbon is a great place to spend a vacation: walk around the city, look at the sea and castles, drink green wine and port, eat sardines and pâtel de nata.
- There are few iconic landmarks in the city, many buildings having been destroyed by the tsunami in the 18th century.
- Sintra, Porto and Cape Roca are must-sees.
- As souvenirs you should bring canned fish, port wine and ginjinho cherry tincture.
- Lisbon is a very pleasant city for not rushing anywhere.
