What we did in Lisbon

So, what we did in Lisbon mega post. These posts are the single most useful thing on my blog, I send them to people all the time for recommendations.

Where we stayed

We stayed in Graça, a residential area just north of the old town of Alfama. As a location it actually wasn’t ideal because it’s quite far away from any metro stop and the public transport that does go there is the vintage 28 tram, which is always rammed because it’s a very picturesque route and people travel it as a sightseeing thing. Obviously Lisbon is super hilly and Alfama especially, and with all the walking up the hill with tiny legs to get to the flat it wasn’t really possible to go back during the day, so we just stayed out all day. It was nice to stay in a different part though, last time we stayed near the Intendente metro and only went to Alfama once. We enjoy doing a lot of walking about so it’s good to mix it up.

Sights and Museums

* Oceanarium This is Europe’s biggest aquarium and it’s pretty amazing. There’s a massive tank in the centre of the building that you can see from all sides with sharks and divers and manta rays and all sorts of fish inside. It was very very busy which is no surprise.

* Tile Museum This was Dave’s mum choice, and I probably wouldn’t have picked it otherwise (there is no end of tiles you can see in real life), but I really enjoyed it. Lots of religious and royal stuff which I can take or leave, but interesting to see the history and how tiles are made, and also some fabulous contemporary commissions

* Museu Coleção Berardo This is in Belém, and Dave and I went in on our own. It’s an amazing collection of twentieth century art in the permanent collection, I was really impressed. Free on Saturdays too

* Barrio Alto We did this as an activity towards the end of the holiday, when our attention spans were low. We took the furnicular up the hill, along the route of it there is lots of streetart (in general, there is a lot of streetart which left me in a state of pretty constant excitement). We walked up to the Principe Real, where there is lots of independent/designer type shops and we spent two hours in the same playpark as last time. It’s in a lovely park and there are tables next to it so we could sit while the boys played. There’s also a great indie shopping arcade called ‘Embaixada Concept Store’ near it, it’s a lovely domed building with lots of different designers in each room. We bought some mugs from local ceramics person Cecile Mestelan and also some gifts. I think if we went again I would try to stay in Barrio Alto or Principe Real as we didn’t visit this part of the city that much.

* Belém Because we didn’t manage to get on the 28 tram we got the 18 to Belém and it was quiet! Though we later saw ones that were just as busy as the 28. We had custard tarts, went to the museum (see above), had lunch and walked along the waterfront back to the museum.

* Feira de Ladra Fleamarket. This was really near our flat. It’s part proper fleamarket of random crap, part more selective vintage/antique stalls, and part artisans/crafters and antiques in a permanent building. There was a great ceramics place which I really wanted to go back to but unfortunately missed – the market is Tuesday and Saturday only and the shops are only open when the market is on. Also great views over the city from the nearby car park.

* one thing I wanted to do but we didn’t is go the LX factory. It’s a site under the big 25 de Abril bridge with independent shops cafes and streetart. I’ve seen pictures of the bookshop which looks absolutely amazing. It’s a bit awkward to get to (about halfway to Belém) we couldn’t have walked with the boys (you probably could with just adults) so we ditched it.

Daytrips

* Sintra one of the reasons save managed to persuade me to go back to Lisbon was that last time we didn’t go to Sintra because Milo was still in his buggy. This was definitely the right decision, you have to get the train and then a bus to get to the palace. But definitely worth it! Sintra is a hill town inland from Lisbon, and the temperatures are noticeably lower which made it popular as a place for the royals to stay in the summer. There are several sites, but we only visited Pena palace, a 19th century thing that’s a mish mash of vaguely moorish styles. It’s really colourful and very photogenic, if you can cut out the crowds. I really really loved it and it’s really the only place on that holiday I took a lot of big camera pictures, so that’ll get its own post. There’s massive gardens with wooded areas and lakes too, so you could easily spend the day.

* Cascais I already posted about this. This is a seaside town about half an hour on the train. There’s two beaches, one with rocks, one just sand. There’s a board walk as well that connects to other beach towns so you can walk along the coast and get the train back elsewhere.

Coffee

We like to discover places by following the speciality coffee, but Lisbon doesn’t really have a big speciality coffee scene, particularly after the coffee wonderland that is Madrid. The local coffee is very strong, very dark roasted espresso (that’s what you get when you ask for ‘a coffee’) so the lighter roasts and complicated milk ratios of speciality coffee haven’t really taken off. We did go to a few places, but they were relatively quiet and had a lot of international people in them.

* Fábrica. There’s two branches, we went to the one nearer the centre lots of times and had food in the other one

* Copenhagen coffee lab. They are a bakery as well as a coffee place and they cakes were really nice (the ones in Fábrica were more limited). There are four branches, we went to two. The one in Alfama has a lovely outdoor space!

Food

* Cantina do Azis. Very low key Mozambiquean at the lower levels of Alfama. We went there last time as well and went back and loved it again.

* Time out food hall I love this place! There’s lots of proper fancy restaurant type food. We went three times, twice for proper food. It does get crazy busy, but it’s not as touristy as you might expect

* The custard tart factory in Belém They serve them warm and fresh out of the oven, omg

* Esta Oeste This is the restaurant attached to the art museum. It’s an Italian/Asian fusion thing which is kind of a stange concept, but they serve plenty of just Italian or just Japanese and we were sat outside so the boys could play in a fountain

* House of WonderThis is a vegetarian restaurant in Cascais we went to four years ago but has upped its game significantly. Then it was an (amazing looking) buffet you could serve yourself from, this time they offer five different plates (four are mixed salad platters, one is shakshuka) and fresh mixed fruit juices. The hostess was a (I think) Dutch woman who seemingly spoke every language in the world (I heard her speak Portuguese, English, Italian, French and Dutch).

* Pizza Casanova By the bay on the side of the city where all the big ships are. It’s really just (good) pizza, but it’s got an outside terrace looking right onto the water which is great.

* Santini. This is an ice cream chain that is lovely. It originates in Cascais but there are lots of branches and it was by far the best ice cream we had

I think that’s all, I hope I haven’t forgotten anything!