A long weekend in Lisbon

I try to make a point of going away for my birthday every year and, as it falls in June, I can usually expect good weather. This year we headed to Lisbon, which was in the middle of a heatwave so the weather was perhaps a little too good.

We’d pre-ordered Lisboa cards which we collected at the airport – this gave us discount or free entry to a number of top sights, free travel for our chosen length of stay (72 hours for €40), and also gave us a smug feeling as we swanned past the crowds at the airport metro station. If it’s your first time to Lisbon then the card is likely to be worth it – we certainly felt we got our money’s worth.

I’d heard great things about the city and wasn’t disappointed. It’s very hilly and this probably adds to the sense of distinct neighbourhoods, so even in a short visit you feel like you’ve been to several different Lisbons. Our chosen hotel was the Mundial, conveniently placed for the start/end point of the famous Tram 28 – one of the cheapest ways of touring the key sights of the city without the leg work. We took the tram as a means of orientation, heading up to the Alfama district and the Castelo de Sao Jorge to enjoy the fabulous views over the city and soak up the atmosphere of this Moorish neighbourhood with its many alleys and miradouros. The castle offers free guided tours – I’d suggest the 4pm one as it may well be a little hot for the midday option. The Alfama area is the place to come for Fado – the nostalgic and emotional soul music that is at the heart of this special barrio in Lisbon. You’ll hear it pretty much everywhere in some shape or form, so choose your poison and enjoy. We then sloped back to the hotel to admire the views of Alfama and the caste from the rooftop bar – magical, even in a sudden downpour!

Our second day started with a tram ride out to Belem, one of Lisbon’s outlying neighbourhoods but famous for some superb buildings. We started with Mosteiro dos Jeronimos and realised that we should have made the effort to get there when it opened at 10am! Again, the Lisboa card did at least let us skip some of the lines, so not all bad! This is an incredibly ornate monastery, built to celebrate the achievements of Vasco de Gama discovering the sea route to India, in 1501. At the time we visited there was a fascinating exhibition charting the timeline of the monastery alongside the timeline of Portuguese and world events, providing useful context.

Belem’s beauty doesn’t end there – the Torre de Belem was designed to protect the harbour and now provides excellent views but if you prefer something more 20th century to 16th century then the Museu Coleccao Berardo offers huge selection of modern and contemporary art, with Warhol, Pollock and Miro just some of the famous names represented. Even more surprising than the location and lack of awareness of the gallery is the fact that it’s free admission thanks to Mr Berardo, Portugal’s biggest art collector and billionaire. If all of the sightseeing makes you hungry there are some lovely restaurants lined up alongside the park or around the marinas and you simply cannot leave the area without queuing to get your hands on at least one (OK, three) pasteis de nata – heavenly custard tarts – from Antiga Confeitaria de Belem; they’ve had nearly two hundred years to perfect the recipe and it shows.

As my idea of art is a little more turn of the century, we spent our last full day checking out the Museu Calouste Gulbenkian (I particularly enjoyed the great collection of Rene Lalique’s work) but there was no avoiding modern art as the gallery is right next door to the Centro de Arte Modena – both are located in superb gardens where we came across quite a few locals enjoying a picnic and paddling in the stream.

That evening we decided to head to another of Lisbon’s neighbourhoods via one of the elevadores that take over when trams find the going a little too steep. Aptly named Bairro Alto is where you’ll find both tourists and locals go for a good night out, with plenty of bars and restaurants spilling out onto the pavements.

By now we’d covered a good five or more of Lisbon’s distinct districts, so we decided that before we left we should fit one more in (good use of that Lisboa card, after all) and visit Parque das Nacaoes –built for Expo ’98 and very much with a sense of modernity to it. It’s also conveniently on the metro line to the airport. Here you’ll find the business hotels, exhibition venues and….Europe’s second-largest aquarium of course. This place is a knock-out and I’d say an absolute must if you have kids in tow, especially if you dragged them round the ‘boring’ museums already. The huge central tank allows you to get up close and personal with rays, sharks and other pretty fish that I should know the names of whilst the penguins and sea otters are another big attraction. Check out the feeding times and book online to jump the entry queues.

I do usually find I clock up a decent mileage on a city break but I’m pretty sure Lisbon topped the lot, and that was in 40 degree heat. It’s a stunning city from all angles, and there are a lot of them thanks to the hills. I would love to take a return trip at a slightly less frenetic pace just to soak it all up a bit more and relax into the sights and sounds of this fabulous capital city.