3 Full days of Lisbon

With my last article I think I made my point about the delightful atmosphere of Porto (you can read about it here), but of course capitals always have something about them that transpose visitors in some sort of historical vibe because there were so many national events connected to them.

I planned this trip to Lisbon long time before arriving in Porto for our Erasmus. I also knew I was coming here with a very close friend from Romania who is also doing her exchange in Porto – even though at a different university - so it was easy to book everything knowing that we’ll have each other’s company.

• Tip 1: Travelling as early as you start courses as possible is a great idea since the odds of having a lot of homework and projects or midterms is very low and you can travel peacefully.
• Tip 2: When you find cheap plane tickets try to look for a morning departure and a late in the evening return because this way you can enjoy more time at your destination.
• Tip 3: When looking for accommodation, try looking for the ones with breakfast included because for 1-2 extra euros you can start your adventure with a full belly.

So we booked the flight for the end of September, found really cheap accommodation in a great hostel in Lisbon, with breakfast included too, and off we went!

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Transportation (Porto – Lisbon)

We found some really cheap tickets from Porto to Lisbon for only 28 € (round trip) so that was surely a nice incentive to visit Lisbon so soon after our arrival in Portugal. Unfortunately, we had our flight really early in the morning (around 6 am so we woke up pretty tired and getting ourselves from the bed to the airport with the night busses was quite a struggle), but that was not a problem since in Porto you have day buses as well as night buses for the same price of 2 € per trip.

Little side note: Luckily enough, we had the chance to watch the sunrise right when we went out of the airport in Lisbon, right from the shuttle bus station from Aerobus. That’s something you don’t get to see that often, so remember what I said about morning flights! They are definitely worth it.

The ticket for the bus from the airport to the city center was 4 € (one-way) and you can very easily get it from one of the machines in the station and even pay by card. If you want you can also choose a return ticket for 6 € so that’ll save you 2 € for both trips.

Our accommodation

We did our check-in at our very hipster-ish hostel booked with hostelworld.com and if you are looking for a cheap accommodation and you don’t mind the sharing your space with other nice travelers I would definitely recommend staying in a hostel and especially in New Hub Lisbon Hostel. It was definitely one of the best hostels I’ve ever stayed in. It’s 20 minutes to the city center, located in a very quiet neighborhood and not to mention that we also had one of the most delicious breakfast there too (included in the bed price) – fruits, tea, coffee, orange/ apple/ pineapple juice, cakes, bread, milk, 3 different types of cereals and *drum rolls* Nutella!

So, here’s how we planned the days:

Day 1

So, we started our day with a Free walking tour (You can book it too here). For those of you who don’t know about these glorious tours ever since I discovered them my travelling style changed completely. In short: you will be given a free tour around the city from a local who speaks fluently the language you book the tour in and you can tip them at the end with how much you think the tour was worth.

What I love about them is that all the guides are very charismatic and funny since they are trying their best to make you feel perfect since they might receive a bigger tip at the end – and that’s perfectly fine as long you have a great experience right? You will not risk paying for an expensive city guide who will be very boring, ending up paying for nothing.

What we checked on the tour:

Camões Square – small square built in Luís Vaz de Camões’ memory – Portugal’s greatest poet. You can recognise him in the photos and statues by his one missing eye that he lost in a battle.

Café a Brasileira – the place where most of the tourists sit on Fernando Pessoa’s lap and order a ‘bica’ which is the ‘genuine coffee from Brazil’.

Bertrand Bookstore – the oldest bookstore in the world (opened in 1732) - they even have a Guiness World Record for this exposed at the entrance.

Convento do Carmo – a beautiful medieval convent whose ceiling crashed during the 1755 Lisbon earthquake and somehow it remained like that up until today so it’s really nice to see a piece of history stuck in time like that, especially when it’s placed in such a lively square with music live bands all day long in the nearby cafes.

The Santa Justa Elevator – but we didn’t go on the elevator because there was a crazy line and we thought there’s no point paying 5 € only to see a view that you can see for free from the small terrace you can access right from the back of the Convento do Carmo (Let alone the tens of viewpoints you can admire Lisbon from too! )

Arco da Rua Augusta & Praça do Comércio – the iconic arch that commemorates the reconstruction of the city after the big earthquake. This square is so popular on Instagram we needed a lot of time to be happy with our photos here.

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And that was the tour! Maybe it doesn’t seem like we did much or walked a lot but the tour is so insightful that you definitely learn a lot, especially when you receive the knowledge from a passionate local like Fred or from any of the Sandeman’s guides. It was the third time I had a tour with them and I was definitely not disappointed by this company as I was with other free walking tour offers so I am definitely recommending this one to anyone as a trust worthy experience for sure.

We took the rest of the day off and decided that we were tired enough to simply find a place to eat some delicious bacalhau and we followed Fred’s advice not to choose a restaurant in the city center and we picked one that was close to some Lisboa Bar (10 € for a pretty big piece of fish with salad and potatoes aside).

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We then went back to explore the neighboorhood of our hostel and the parks nearby: Jardim de São Pedro de Alcântara and the church of São Roque. We also spent a lot of time in the souvenir shops and even though we are never buying anything, still, it’s definitely one of our favorite activities to get ourselves into the ‘holiday vibe’. We then ended this day watching the sunset back at Praça do Comércio. Simply magical!

Day 2

In the second day we decided to try Cascais and we were definitely not disappointed! It was definitely one of the best trips we had and was only 1 h away from Lisbon. So we did the walking distance from our hostel to Estação Cais do Sodré – the train station you can get the train to Cascais from (because there’s another train station at Rossio from where you can get the train to Sintra, but I think Google Maps will sort this out for you anyway).

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Cascais is a delightful fishing town, full of ships that you can always see close to the shore. It is also a very popular holiday destination since it has a lot of fine resorts and an overall great atmosphere to go to the beach or simply stroll around the elegant town.

First, we made our way through the town to Boca do Inferno and took some really beautiful photos there, let alone we spent maybe a full half an hour admiring the waves hitting the impressive rocks so we got the idea of why it is actually called ‘Hell’s mouth’.

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Only the walk around the city and along the coastline will give you the exact vibe you would expect such a destination to offer you, so no wonder we ended up spending 2 hours on the beach there too, right after we arrived just in the middle of a marathon that was supposed to start from Cascais in the morning and finish in Lisbon later that day after 8 h of continuous running.

We are not that keep on going running while on holiday so “surprisingly enough”… we took the train. We decided to stop in Belém on our way back to Lisbon even though we were freshly sun kissed and kind of tired, but we were still eager to visit. Here’s what we saw:

Monumento aos Descobrimentos – The popular monument that embodies all the important discoverers sailing away into the sea with Henry the Navigator in front of them all. There is also a small museum inside to visit.

Jerónimos Monastery – An absolutely stunning monastery that has 5 € entry for students (Don’t forget your student card to get the discount. You can also pay with card) This is the place where you can see the tomb of the famous Vasco Da Gama and where you can simply be mesmerized by the beautiful floral design of the building.

Pastéis de Belém – the famous place where Pastéis were born and from where anyone can actually step into a 10-20 min vintage experience given the elegant and old design of the whole place. You can check it for yourself here. Given that we have already tried pastéis de nata in Porto we were able to compare them with Pastéis de Belém and I can assure you these last ones were less sweet than the ones in Porto so you could eat more. Just remember, if you want to try them, always order 2, because we trust a very old and wise Portuguese man who once said “One is never enough. ”

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Torre de Belém – We got here right at the sunset so I guess this was just a given. It was a good decision not to go inside since the main attraction was in its full splendor from the outside, but you can also visit the interior if you want.

After seeing the tower, we came back to the city and had a night stroll along the coastline of Lisbon right before praça do Comércio where, luckily enough, we arrived right in the middle of a sport week activity with some kids learning a dance choreography. Of course a few minutes later we joined them too. (It appears that that was the finish line for the marathon that started in Cascais since we were there in the morning). We only remained with this amazing group to put us into that night’s great dancing mood again,

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Day 3

After our last glorious breakfast in New Hub Lisbon, we took all our things and spent our time in the living room of the hostel – a really cozy place, full of sofas and chairs and tables to sit and chat with others at, and the best part was that we also had a Play Station and a movie projector too, so we had enough activities to choose from until our check-out at 11 am.

What we did on the last day:

Alfama Neighborhood – the old neighborhood that used to be quite a nasty place to live in back in the times and that surprisingly enough for everyone was the only part of the city to survive the big earthquake. Now it is a really lovely and authentic place to lose yourself into, since the architecture remained the same and locals are still some of the friendliest and welcoming in the whole ‘oh, so touristic’ Lisbon.

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Miradouro da Senhora do Monte – cross Alfama and climb a little bit and you will find yourself in the highest view point in Lisbon and one of the most beautiful of them all. I would definitely recommend going to see this one for sure. Not to mention the street singers that will play you the best music background to get you into a lovely reflective state.

Miradouro Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen – making our way to the castle (this time going downwards thankfully) we discovered this viewpoint too, which also has a church with many azulejos to admire.

Castelo de São Jorge – the castle that is looking down on Lisbon we were lucky to visit for free.

• Tip 4: The residents of Portugal can go there for free on Sunday, between 9am and 2pm. This was really a lucky shot since not only did we save 5 €, but we also had some great timing getting there at 1:30 pm with no clue about this. So, just show up at that time and be sure you have your Portuguese student card or a proof of your staying in Portugal (long term) and you’re all set for a free visit.
• Tip 5: Once in the castle, I also recommend waiting in a line to see the Camera Obscura with their guide. It works every 20 minutes, from 10-17:20, and you can enjoy it only if it’s sunny outside since they have an optic mechanism that shows you live moments around the city for 20 minutes.

Panteão Nacional – this was by far the best thing we visited in Lisbon since not only was it free again because they had some sort of national day, but also because when you go up the terrace you can enjoy an absolutely marvelous view over the Tagus river and its yachts. We definitely spent one full hour there taking photos and simply sitting down on the long stair admiring the view from the shadow side of the Pantheon. Quite breathtaking.

One last stroll around Alfama and we made our way back to the Aerobus station to get us back to the airport.

• Tip 6: Be careful in the airport in Lisbon because they have two different terminals and your flight might have its departure from the 2nd Terminal and you will need a free bus from the airport to get there.

And that was our full itinerary and raw impressions from Lisbon!

All in all, I can definitely say that I enjoyed how we organized ourselves to see most of the interesting points there and if you feel like you would like to check some of the things we saw too, I strongly recommend trying to combine them in such a way you will not waste time using the bus/ metro/ train to go from one to another and choose parts of the city to see per day.

We still have things to do there so I will probably come back again this year. Nevertheless, here's a list of things that you might be able to do as well if you choose to stay more than 3 days:

• Oceanário de Lisboa,
• Ponte 25 de Abril,
• Santuário Nacional de Cristo Rei,
• Parque Eduardo VII de Inglaterra,
• Palácio Nacional de Queluz,
• Museu Nacional do Azulejo,
• Museu Nacional dos Coches.

Other than that, Lisbon is a must see for sure and I most probably need to come back again since I haven’t seen nor Cabo da Roca, neither Sintra – two things you definitely need to see while there, but until then, you’ll find me back in Porto!

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