A visit to Lisbon

If you’re planning a trip to Portugal in 2024, including a visit to Lisbon (one of the most popular cities in Europe), there are so many things to do you may be overwhelmed. We recently got back from a three-day stay at the end of April, our first time in Lisbon. I’m passing on what we did, what went well, what didn’t, and the places to see that we really enjoyed, as well as some thoughts on taking photographs when in Lisbon. You can see some of mine in this post. By the way, April is a good time to visit Lisbon as the weather tends to be perfect for a city-break.

Photography in Lisbon

Firstly, some words of caution.

Lisbon is reputed to have more than its fair share of pickpockets. Make sure your gear is in hand/in sight at all times. Backpacks that are easy to open from the rear or that have gear poking out of side pockets are of course vulnerable.

All of that said, we did not feel at risk or in any danger whatsoever throughout our stay.

Like many major attractions worldwide, most of Lisbon’s have explicit restrictions on commercial use of photos or video taken on the premises. This does not stop millions of such images appearing on stock photo sites and the like, but most people putting them on those sites will have no right to do so and one of these days might come a cropper!

I took my travel photo gear including the wonderful IBIS-equipped Fujifilm X-T5 and the outstanding Fujifilm 16-80mm f/4 image-stabilised lens, which together covered all photographic needs on the trip (even more so as the X-T5 40-megapixel sensor allows for cropping into far distant subjects without significant loss of image quality). As always, my iPhone Pro did some of the heavy lifting as well, especially when out at night.

I was pleased to be able to add to my WC portfolio (see A Spotter’s Guide to Toilets):

Suggested itinerary and best photography locations in Lisbon

Alfama

We arrived on a Monday around lunchtime. We spent the first afternoon wandering the often steep and narrow, centuries-old alleyways of Alfama (the oldest part of Lisbon), from St Georges Castle (next to which we were staying —  see below), right down to the River Tagus and the enormous square known as Praça do Comércio at the bottom of the Baixa and Chiado districts, Later on, we found a great little bar with tables outside for a pre-dinner drink, and then went on to dinner to try out some Portuguese food. This route was entirely walkable, and mostly level or downhill (though a bit tougher travelling back up – Lisbon sure is hilly).

Miradouros

There are numerous lookout points (known as miradouros) offering amazing views of the city. Here’s a map of the Lisbon miradouros (opens Google My Maps).

Belém

The next day, as described later on in this post, we visited Belém. There are many ways to get there, including the E15 tram along the riverfront. (You can join it at Praça do Comércio.)

This is where you will find the Jerónimos Monastery, Belém Castle, the Discoveries Monument and the Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology (MAAT), amongst other attractions.

You can read more about our experiences in Belém below, in connection with the Lisboa Card. There’s also a tip about how possibly to avoid some queues.

Belém

St Georges Castle

The castle has astonishing views of Lisbon and is well worth a visit (if it’s not raining, as this is an almost entirely outdoor attraction). The peacocks are an additional point of interest. I would not recommend taking small, mobile children here without careful supervision or a leash, as there are some terrifying drops that are easy for a small child to access and, well, drop off of!

Tram 28

You may have read about this tram. They’re a bit difficult to get onto owing to their popularity. We finally managed to get onto one late one evening for a couple of stops, just for the experience. It was jam-packed. At first I couldn’t move down the tram. Instead I tried to take a photo out the front window with my iPhone. Just as I was lining up my shot, the driver, a young woman, screamed, “Stop filming!” I wasn’t filming, and I wasn’t very happy to be shouted at either. I was just standing in the only available spot doing what any normal tourist would do when travelling on an iconic tram. The large number of passengers all day, everyday must have been getting on that driver’s nerves!

Lisbon guidebooks

The most useful guidebooks we found were the Mini Rough Guide to Lisbon and the DK Eyewitness Travel Guide to Lisbon, both of which I got on Kindle so I could access them on my phone.

Do you speak English?

You certainly don’t need any fluency in Portuguese. We learnt a few key phrases, including hello (hola) and thank you (obrogado for a man speaking, obrodaga for a woman). Avoid speaking Spanish (e.g. gracias), because apparently there is not much love lost between the two nations. Almost everyone speaks pretty good English. Most of the time we didn’t even ask whether people spoke English, we just got on with speaking in English, preceded with a cheery “Hola”. But if you want to ask, fala inglayish is the phonetic pronunciation.

There are numerous reasons why the Portuguese like English-speaking people. Portugal and England have been allies since 1373. It’s the oldest alliance in the world that is still in force. Since then both the Spanish (Thirty Years War, 1641 to 1668) and the French (under Napoleaon Bonaparte) have waged war against Portugal, and on each occasion English forces have become involved in the fight on behalf of Portugal. As a result, Portugeuse independence and their national identity were maintained.

Portugal was one of the allies of Great Britain and the USA in World War I. One of our taxi drivers in Sintra told us that his grandfather had fought against Germany in WWI in the African desert (and almost died when German troops poisoned wells during their retreat).

In WWII Portugal was neutral, but assisted the Allies in numerous ways, including in 1943 permitting the British and later the USA to establish air and naval bases on the Azores. The air base is still in use as a US and NATO transit base even today. During WWII this base greatly facilitated military flights between the USA and Europe and North Africa, and the suppression of German naval activity in the mid-Atlantic.

Where to stay in Lisbon

If you’re looking for the best hotels in Lisbon, you might want to look no further than where we stayed, which was at the excellent Solar do Castelo boutique hotel, right next door to St Georges Castle/Castelo de São Jorge. They not only collected us from the airport but also provided complimentary tea and coffee all day, together with an extensive assortment of cakes, including the delicious custard tarts for which Lisbon is famous, a complimentary bottle of port in our room, and complimentary prosecco around the firepit at night!

An added bonus was a noon checkout, which enabled us to visit the castle first thing in the morning on our final day, before any queues formed, avoiding having to walk up the hill to get there. (For those who do not have the advantage of nearby accommodation, and who are not keen on walking up the highest hill in Lisbon, the 737 bus from Praça da Figueira drops you off 2 minutes’ walk away from the castle.)

Lisboa Card – to buy or not to buy

A key decision you will have to make as your visit begins is whether to buy a Lisbon/Lisboa Card, which you can get for 24, 48 or 72 hours. The longer the validity, the less it costs per day. The duration of the card starts from when you first use it. You can buy one at Lisbon airport (and then use it to travel into Lisbon), or at various points in town. It gets you into many of the main attractions for free or at a discount, and allows unlimited public transport travel at no additional charge. It’s very handy for getting around Lisbon. If you’re going to take a day trip to Sintra during or after your Lisbon visit, the Lisbon/Lisboa Card includes the cost of that train ride. 

Another key decision is where to keep your Lisboa Card (hint: not next to your phone, which will wipe your card, and apparently it’s hard to get a replacement, but keep your receipt, which may assist).

You can pay more for an enhanced Lisboa Card, which gets you some discounts in Sintra. We did not do that because prior to going to Lisbon we had advanced booked Pena Palace (as the required and limited timed tickets for our preferred day were running out).

The deciding factor on getting a Lisboa Card is whether you think you’ll get your money’s worth. It’s important to do this exercise in good time before you travel to Lisbon, because you need to have decided on your itinerary before you can work out what the cost will be without a Lisboa Card. (You can buy a separate travel card, but you have to keep topping it up, and it doesn’t get you into attractions.) We took a more relaxed view, deciding it would be good to have the Lisboa Card even if we didn’t get full monetary value, because it would save faffing around with buying individual tickets on public transportion, and also we could pop in and out of attractions and spend as much or as little time as we wished in each, without feeling like we had to get our money’s worth for the entrance fee.

That latter point works at some attractions but not others. We arrived early at the Jerónimos Monastery, which is a must see and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. But we encountered some highly annoying factors that left us feeling short-changed.

First, we had to queue/stand in line for about 90 minutes, so this was hardly a pop in and pop out situation (and by the time we got in, the queue length had doubled). There were two queues when we arrived, so I showed a guard my Lisboa Card and we were directed to the end of one of the lines (the longest by the way). When we finally got inside we found out that the admission was only for the (magnificent) cloisters and that the other queue had been for the other part of the monastery (which contains the highly ornate interior of the Church of Santa Maria). Before exiting you walk right past the entrance to the church, but we were not allowed in. Apparently you had to queue again. We did not have enough time to do that, so we moved on and missed seeing it.

Another factor that left us seething was that numerous large tour groups were given priority for entrance, which increased our queuing time substantially. The average human lifespan being circa 28,835 days, I take it personally when I’m made to stand in line for more than an hour. So instead of buying a Lisboa Card you might want to investigate tours, which seems to be a way of avoiding the queues and saving time.

Despite the difficulties, overall we made a profit on the Lisboa Card, compared to paying individual entrance fees/fares. 

Museum and tourist attraction closing days

We would have done even better had one museum we turned up at not been closed that day. What was really annoying was that we had deliberately travelled to the Belém district on a Tuesday, because the Jerónimos Monastery is closed on Monday. But we discovered that on Tuesdays the MAAT is closed. This is a major museum and why they can’t keep it open 7 days a week is beyond me. At the very least, all attractions in the same neighbourhood ought to be open on the same days. Of course we are mere tourists so why should our convenience and impression of the city of Lisbon matter? 

The viewing platform at the top of the Discoveries Monument was open on that Tuesday, is included in the Lisboa Card, only had a short queue, and is a great experience, if you don’t mind heights. There’s a lift to the top.

I hope you enjoy your trip to Lisbon.

Your experience will be different from ours. If you have any comments or your own Lisbon travel tips, please leave them in a comment below.