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Why Lisbon?

My reasons for visiting Lisbon are embarrassingly superficial, but I’m so glad I went through with it: to drink Port in Portugal, travel to a city I’ve never visited, and check out the city I saw some FIRE (aka financially independent, retire early) people gravitate towards. A quick shout out to my friend Elizabeth who first told me about “drinking Port in Portugal”. Whether or not she was serious, I checked it off during my solo travel to Lisbon just a week ago.

Goals

I have very specific goals when I travel and I’ve come to appreciate learning from other travelers who share their experience during their trips. Since my travel preferences likely differ a lot from the typical, I wanted to add this section to give readers an idea of whether or not they’d find benefit in reading this blog. In general, when I travel - and also for this Lisbon trip, I maximized the following:

Quantity over quality - not a hard and fast rule, but I typically try to see more of a city I’ve never been to vs. staying in one spot too long. I don’t think most folks enjoy this as it’s a constant on-to-go mentality.
Favor hostels - although socialization isn’t a primary goal, I’ve had the best experiences staying at hostels when I travel internationally due to their location and opportunities to meet individuals from other parts of the world. This also segues into the next section:
Frugality - since my goal is usually to see more of the city, I typically favor the experience itself of being there. Typically, this leads me to being more averse to spending money on things as I usually just walk or take public transport and grab quick bites to keep moving. In general, hostels are usually quite cheap and there’s typically activities (e.g. walking tours, food tours) and free food (e.g. breakfast) at some of them.
Photos - I typically favor picturesque locations to visit and my itinerary almost always will revolve around unique vantage points to capture an awesome shot for sunset or sunrise.

Flights

Dates: Sep 5 - Sep 7

Trip: One-way from Washington Dulles (IAD) -> Lisbon (LIS) -> Marrakesh (RAK).

Cost: $662.60

Although I was originally looking for direct, round-trip flights to Lisbon, my recent trip was actually an accident as I noticed Lisbon was a layover when I was looking for flights to Marrakesh. The airline I found was TAP Portugal, the flag carrier of Portugal, and upon further investigation, I noticed it offered a “Portugal Stopover” which allows you to visit Lisbon or Porto from 1 to 10 days as a layover and continue onto your original destination afterwards. I did this in 2018 using WOW with a 1-day layover in Iceland as I was looking for flights to London. Amazing experience and something I strongly recommend to others looking to visit. For me, I opted for a 1-day (27 hours to be specific) layover in Lisbon on my flight from Virginia (IAD) to Marrakesh (RAK).

Dates: Sep 13

Trip: One-way from Sevilla (SVQ) -> Lisbon (LIS) -> Washington (IAD).

Cost: $510.50 (or 34,033 points). I used points for this.

I didn’t book a round-trip since this was a multi-city travel. I also would have booked everything on Chase if RyanAir was available in the Chase Portal. Though the Chase Portal also didn’t have as much control over how long I wanted my Portugal stopover to be so it just made sense to use the TAP Portugal website directly for the stopover and then use the Chase Portal afterward to use my travel points.

Getting around Lisbon

Metro, buses, trams, lifts, and trains are the ideal ways of getting around Lisbon. You can certainly walk and I did that for the vast majority of my day there, but you will very, very quickly get tired as Lisbon is built on multiple hills. Mind you, very high hills. The cobblestone streets will also put a decent amount of pressure so I’d suggest minimizing walking where possible and taking advantage of the various transport options that are available. I used them, but probably not as much as I should.

With that said, the two most common options you’ll see are the Lisboa Card or the Viva Viagem Card. I’d venture to guess you’ll see the vast majority of tourists getting the former as it offers a lot of benefits that are targeted towards individuals who are visiting the city. The latter appears to be for locals. I really like collecting the tourist visitor cards so I already knew I was going to get the Lisboa Card, but, I actually didn’t pick one up until I was 50% through my trip due to logistics which I’ll elaborate below. But first, let me share some quick highlights between the two cards.

Lisboa Card

Free entrance to 39 museums, monuments and places of interest
Fast track through entrances for 12 places of interest
Free transportation on metro, buses, tram, lifts of Carris lines, CP Train Lisboa - Sintra, Lisboa - Cascais, Lisboa - Azambuja, and Fertagus Lisboa - Setubal.
Discounts from 5% to 50% on local services and 5% to 10% for participating stores in genuinely Portugese articles.
Offered in a 24 hour (€22), 48 hour (€37), or 72-hour card (€46) - discounts can be found online or in some Visitor centers.

Viva Viagem

Multiple ways to travel (e.g. one-way, zapping (aka pay as you go), or unlimited)
The card itself costs (€0.5) and you must purchase one of the methods of travel above at the ticket vending machines and ticket offices.

As I mentioned above, my original plan didn’t go quite as expected as I wasn’t able to pick up my Lisboa card immediately upon arriving in Lisbon. I had hoped to pick up a card right after landing at the airport (what most blogs suggested), but I landed at 6 AM local time and the office that sells the Lisboa cards don’t open until 7:30 AM. I only waited for 30 minutes as customs and passport control was a bit confusing initially and I wandered around the airport looking for where the cards were sold and picked up some Euros at the ATM (I forgot to exchange some Euros at my local bank before arriving). What made this experience worse was that the office at the airport didn’t actually sell any Lisboa cards that day as the system was down. It wasn’t that big of an issue for me, but it certainly pissed off some travelers who had pre-purchased their Lisboa cards and wanted to redeem it at the airport. They began redirecting everyone to the city center (~40 min by metro) to pick it up there. Since I wanted to drop off my bags before heading into the city center and because I wanted to immediately begin exploring, I ended up picking up a Viva Viagem card for 1 day (unlimited rides) for around (€6.5).

Key Places to Visit

When I visit a city, I usually map out all of the key places I want to visit. I might not be able to visit all of them, but I use the map to layout the general path I’ll take to optimize the number of places I can hit all at once. You can see the map I created for Lisbon below.

After reviewing the options available and binging a ton of other Lisbon travel blogs, I made a rudimentary outline of doing the following during my 24 hours in Lisbon:

Take the infamous Tram 28 from Martim Moniz to Campo Ourique (entire length of the route) since it hit most of my key places
Catch a bus near Campo Ourique to Belem to visit Mosteiro dos Jeronimos, Torre de Belem, and other nearby areas of interest
Catch the CP Train from Belem back to Cais do Sodre
Explore some areas I thought were interesting (e.g. Pink Street, Time Out market), but other unique things like the 5 special lifts and elevators in Lisbon
Round out the day by hitting some of the Miradouros and vantage points around Lisbon in the last 2 hours leading to Golden hour (i.e. Castelo de S. Jorge, Senhora do Monte, and Miradouro de Graca).

I’ll spend the next few sections elaborating on each of the spots I visited along with some pictures of each.

Tram 28

Given how popular this is for tourists - and one of the key pictures you’ll see when searching for Lisbon - I think it’s an absolute must for your trip to Lisbon. However, like every other travel blog, I think it should be noted that pickpocketing is supposedly quite rampant on Tram 28 due how popular it is with tourists. Strangely enough, I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary, but I also opted to take this as early in the morning as possible (I took it at 8:30 AM - 9:30 AM) and so the tram wasn’t jam-packed or peak traffic yet which I assume may be when the pickpocketing is highest. It was obvious that many of the passengers were tourists and were riding the entire length while snapping pictures. A few locals, but most appeared to be tourists. I had my bookbag in front of me and ended up on the aisle seat and didn’t get a good spot for pictures, unfortunately. If I were to do this again, I would have waited for a new tram that was empty so I could be the first to pick my seat for a window seat.

End of the E28 Tram ride where I hopped off.

Ponte 25 de Abril

This wasn’t originally on my list of places to visit, but I saw it on the bus ride towards Belem and immediately hopped off the next stop on the bus to walk a few blocks south towards the riverwalk. Below is a picture of me crossing one of the pedestrian bridges across the CP light train tracks to see what vantage points I could get of the bridge. This was one of the first pictures I snapped and it turned out to be one of my favorite captures of the bridge. Highly suggest hopping off the bus to check this out if you follow the route as the riverwalk has a very nice path for bikers, joggers, and scooters that is quite relaxing. I ended up using it to walk the rest of the way towards Belem (slightly regret walking and should have used a bike or scooter) as my legs probably regretted it later in the day.

Mosteiro dos Jeronimos & Torre de Belem

The Mosteiro is a UNESCO site and will be the first spot you hit if you’re coming from Lisbon as the Torre de Belem is more west. Upon walking closer, the first thing I noticed is the enormous crowds and insanely long lines to enter. It was around 90 degrees at the time, I didn’t have my Lisboa Card yet, and didn’t feel like waiting so just opted to snap a few pictures of it from the outside as I slowly made my way from end to end of the Mosteiro.

Mosteiro dos Jeronimos in the afternoon with long lines.

There were quite a few pitstops I made as I made my way towards the Belem Tower which was fun. Snapped a few cool shots of them that I’ll post below. It was on the way towards the Tower so I think it was well worth it with only minor detours.

Upon reaching the Belem Tower, I quickly noticed how popular it was with tourists given the amount of tour buses and the presence of a Tourist/visitor center that sold Lisboa cards. This is where I ended up purchasing mine. I was a bit disappointed though as I was assuming there would be a 15% discount on Lisboa cards for stopovers. I’m unsure if that was only if you pre-purchased it or picked it up at the airport, but the vendor didn’t seem to honor the stopover ticket I showed them. Not a big deal as it was just a few euros, but I was disappointed to find that the Lisboa card was just a normal paper ticket vs. a hard plastic card that I was expecting like other cities I’ve visited (e.g. Barcelona, London).

Early afternoon crowds at the Tower of Belem.

Ascensor da Bica

This was one of the four Funiculars that are popular tourist attractions, but also a very functional way of getting up those treacherous hills in Lisbon. Granted, if I were to redo this, I’d probably opt to just walk up the hill because the wait to get on one of these tourists traps was real in nearly 90 F weather. If you have time to kill and want the experience, it's probably fine and also included in your Lisboa card or Viva Viagem ticket (if you did the unlimited). The pictures, although shot on my iphone SE, still did a decent job of capturing this picturesque funicular in Lisbon.

Iphone capture right after I hopped off the Bica from the top of the hill.

Castelo de Jorge

I added this to my list after seeing some blogs mentioning this location as a fantastic sunset spot. Certainly didn’t disappoint and it was also the spot where I finally had my “Port in Portugal” moment as I sat down to just appreciate the views of the city while taking a break from walking. My legs were already in a bit of pain at this point. Below are some of the vantage points I found and the random one of some houses is probably one of my favorites during this trip.

Miradouro da Senhora do Monte

This was the location I chose for my sunset shot as it’s the highest vantage point in all of Lisbon. Certainly didn’t disappoint and I think I made the right choice. My legs were really killing me at this point since you must climb a rather large hill to get to the top of this. As it neared sunset, it also began to get a bit packed as a lot of tour guides took their guests (usually via car) to check out the beautiful sunset from this overlook.

Conclusion

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed my solo trip to Lisbon. Although it was short, I think I got a good sense of the city and felt quite comfortable navigating around. I also got an idea of other trips and things I’d do the next time I’m in town which would include where to stay and day trips out to Sintra or Cais.

Drinking Port in Portugal - Solo Trip to Lisbon