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FrançaisLisbon is not overrated, but three days in the centre was one day too many for us, because the streets the guidebooks send you down are the streets the restaurant touts and the fake-drug sellers work hardest. Two days covers the centre and Belém at a sane pace. Give the third day to Sintra, Cascais or the coast instead of a fourth lap of Baixa.
I had high expectations for Portugal and for Lisbon in particular. A friend of ours goes often and loves it, and it is the country’s most visited city, so it must be great. That was not how it went. I spent a long time before the trip deciding how many nights to give Lisbon, even considering five nights in the city with Sintra as a day trip, and I am glad I kept two nights in Sintra instead.
What was wrong with it? There is plenty going on in Lisbon that we did not see, but sometimes you know within a day that a city is not for you. Walking from the bus to the hostel I was still optimistic. By the end of our first full day I had changed my mind.
It was very touristy. I heard as many other languages as I heard Portuguese, which is fine in itself and stops being fine when you are treated as a wallet passing through. At almost every restaurant and bar around Restauradores someone tried to pull us in, sometimes physically, and did not stop when it was obvious we did not want it.
The other thing that got to us was the street selling around the Praça do Comércio and Rua Augusta. We were offered marijuana with a police officer standing two metres away, and nothing happened. We were approached at least five times on our first day. After a while you spot the sellers from a distance, and they still come over. There is a reason the police leave them alone: what these men sell is usually not a drug at all. Police in Lisbon have said publicly that the bags contain bay leaves, flour or ground paracetamol, so selling them is not a drugs offence and is hard to prosecute at all. Knowing that makes the approach easier to wave off, though it does not make it pleasant, and residents and bar owners in the Santa Maria Maior district have been saying for years that it is getting worse rather than better.
I went back to Lisbon in January and saw a different city, quieter and far easier to like, so treat what follows as one couple’s summer in the centre rather than a verdict on the place. Here is what we actually did, with what the same days cost and require now.
Exploring Lisbon
Exploring Lisbon on foot means climbing, and the walk that works is the one that goes up once and comes down slowly. Lisbon is built across seven hills and the centre sits in the trough between them, so almost every interesting street is either a staircase or a ramp. We started at our hostel near Cais do Sodré and walked the waterfront east to the Praça do Comércio, which is flat and takes about 15 minutes.
Lunch was at Nosolo Italia on the Praça do Comércio, in the eastern arcade. Eating on the main square of any European capital is a decision you make knowing the answer, and the sandwiches were better than they had any right to be and not badly priced. The drinks were the giveaway. A small coke came to more than €2.50, which in 2013 told you exactly where you were sitting. Nosolo Italia is still trading on the square and still has the second branch in Belém, so you can make the same mistake twice in one day if you want to.
From the square we walked up to the Castelo de São Jorge and decided not to go in. It looked packed, and we had come straight from Sintra, where we had already spent two days inside far better palaces. That call is worth more now than it was then. An adult ticket to the castle is €17, with youth aged 13 to 25 at €8.50, over-65s at €14, children up to 12 free and free entry with a Lisboa Card, according to the castle’s own ticket page in September 2026. Older guides still quote €7.50. If you have already done Sintra, the view from outside the walls and from the free miradouros nearby costs nothing and shows you most of the same city.
What I did like was the descent. From the castle we dropped into Alfama, which is the part of Lisbon I would go back for: narrow streets that scramble your sense of direction, bars with one or two plastic tables outside, and far fewer people than the squares below. We walked downhill until the water stopped us and we were back at the Praça do Comércio.
From there we followed Rua Augusta north through the car-free shopping street to the Praça Dom Pedro IV, which everyone calls Rossio, and on to the Praça dos Restauradores. Then it is uphill along the Avenida da Liberdade to the Praça do Marquês de Pombal and into the Parque Eduardo VII, which was the point of the walk. Keep climbing to the top of the park. The view back down the avenue to the river is the one Lisbon postcard that costs nothing and involves no queue. Behind it lies a second, smaller park, the Jardim Amália Rodrigues, with a lake and shade.
Come out of that park on the far side, turn right and you are at El Corte Inglés. Boyfriend does not usually shop, but the Spanish department store carries surf and snowboard brands he likes, so we lost an hour in there and came out with shorts.
One thing to save you a wrong turn: we then walked back downhill towards the Jardim Botânico and could not find the entrance. The gate is on Rua da Escola Politécnica, next to the natural history museum at the top of the slope, not on the Avenida da Liberdade side, so coming up from the avenue leaves you walking along a wall with no way in. We gave up, carried on down to Restauradores and went looking for dinner.
Two more things about walking Lisbon that we learned the hard way. Cobbles here are polished limestone, and they are genuinely slippery in the wet and hard underfoot in the dry, so shoes matter more than they do in most cities. And the funiculars and lifts are transport, not attractions: Carris now charges €4.30 on board for up to two rides on the Glória, Bica and Lavra lifts and €6.20 for the Santa Justa lift, so if you are going to use them, put the money on a card instead.
Food and drinks
Food and drinks were the part of Lisbon that went most wrong for us, and both restaurants we ate in around Restauradores have since closed. That is worth saying plainly, because the two names in the original version of this trip diary are no longer places you can book.
We ate twice at an Italian restaurant called Valentino on Rua do Jardim do Regedor and it was the highlight of our stay. The staff were friendly without working the street, the ravioli with ricotta and spinach was good, and the pizza was the one bite of pizza I still think about years later: crust exactly as thick as it needed to be, not floury, with tomato, cheese, spicy salami and mushrooms all still tasting like themselves. When Boyfriend ordered a giant ice cream coupe, the waiter brought it with two spoons “just in case”. We paid €40.65 for two mains, dessert, a few colas and a tea, and €26.10 for two mains and drinks the second night. Valentino has closed. The Italian restaurant on that stretch now is Da Vinci Ristorante e Pizzeria, at Rua do Jardim do Regedor 37, under different owners.
The third night we tried somewhere else and ended up at Andorra, on Rua das Portas de Santo Antão. We left after 20 minutes. The calamari was over-fried and came with salad straight out of a bag, and the shrimp cocktail was a glass of lettuce and cocktail sauce with six thin prawns pinned round the rim. It cost €21.10 for the two of us and it was money wasted. Andorra has closed too.
The lesson survives both closures, and it is about the street rather than the restaurants. Rua das Portas de Santo Antão and Rua do Jardim do Regedor are one solid run of tourist-facing dining rooms two minutes from Restauradores, and the ones that send someone onto the pavement to intercept you are the ones to walk past. Our mistake was staying in the centre, near the touristy streets, and then being too tired at the end of a day of walking to go looking for anything better. If you want an honest Portuguese meal, walk 10 to 15 minutes out to Bairro Alto, Príncipe Real or Campo de Ourique, or book something before you get hungry.
Pastries are the exception to all of this and the thing Lisbon genuinely does better than anywhere. Our guide to the pastéis de nata worth queuing for in Lisbon covers where to eat them, and my own view on the most famous shop of all is in the Belém section below.
Accommodation
Accommodation shaped our week more than we expected, because the hostel we picked was fine and nothing more. We stayed at Lisbon Calling on Rua de São Paulo, between Cais do Sodré and Bica. It was not bad. It was just a clear step down from everywhere else we had slept on that trip, and after two nights in Sintra that was noticeable. Lisbon Calling is still open, and the location is genuinely good: you are a few minutes from the Cascais train, the riverside and the Bica funicular, and above the noise of Baixa.
The mistake was the area rather than the bed. Staying inside the tourist ring in Baixa or around Restauradores means every meal you eat within walking distance is aimed at someone who will never come back. Chiado, Príncipe Real, Estrela and Alcântara all put you 10 to 20 minutes from the sights and in streets where the restaurants have regulars. Compare places to stay in Lisbon on that basis rather than by how close the pin is to the castle. If a pool matters in summer, and in Lisbon in August it does, we have a separate list of Lisbon hotels with a swimming pool.
One cost to budget for that did not exist on our trip: Lisbon charges a municipal tourist tax of €4 per guest per night, for guests aged 13 and over, capped at 7 nights. It applies to hotels, hostels, guesthouses and short-term rentals alike, it went up from €2 on 1 September 2024, and it is usually collected at check-in rather than in the booking price.
A day in Belém
A day in Belém is the right way to spend your second day in Lisbon, because the monuments, the monastery, the gardens and the pastry shop sit within a 20-minute walk of each other. Belém is a civil parish about 6 km (3.7 miles) west of the centre along the river. We took tram 15 from Cais do Sodré and were there in about 20 minutes.
Get the fare right before you board. Tram 15E is a modern articulated tram rather than one of the little yellow ones, and Carris now charges €3.30 for a single bought on board, against €2.30 on a bus. Loading Zapping credit onto a Navegante card cuts the per-ride cost sharply and takes a couple of minutes at any metro machine, which is the single cheapest decision you can make in Lisbon.
A few metres from the tram stop is Pastéis de Belém, the shop that has been making the original recipe since 1837. I had read that there is almost always a queue outside and that if you go inside and take a seat you get served within seconds. Both turned out to be true: the queue on the pavement is for takeaway, the rooms at the back are enormous, and a waiter reached us almost immediately. I will be honest about the tarts themselves. They were good. They were not the revelation everyone promises, and I had better pastries elsewhere in Portugal. The rooms are also loud and packed, so we did not linger the way we normally would over a morning coffee.
Our next stop was the Jardim Botânico Tropical at the Largo dos Jerónimos, and this is the one I would tell you to skip or to time properly. We paid €2 to get in and it was the poorest botanical garden I have walked through: unmaintained, bare patches where plants should have been, dirty pond water and a dead bird or two. Entry is now €8 for adults, €6.40 for over-65s and €4 for students, and the garden opens 10.00 to 17.00 from 1 October to 31 March and 9.00 to 20.00 from 1 April to 30 September, according to the University of Lisbon museums that run it. Entry is free every Sunday from 10.00 to 13.00. If you want to see whether it has recovered since our visit, that is the window to do it in.
The Mosteiro dos Jerónimos next door is a different matter. We did not go inside, and even from the square the scale of it is the thing you remember: a 16th-century Manueline monastery running the length of the Praça do Império, kept in far better condition than the garden beside it. From there we walked past the Museu Nacional de Arqueologia and the Museu de Marinha down to the water.
At the river stands the Padrão dos Descobrimentos, the monument to the navigators of the 15th and 16th centuries, with Henry the Navigator at the prow and a compass rose set into the pavement in front of it. Behind it in every photograph is the 25 de Abril Bridge. People assume it is a copy of the Golden Gate, and the resemblance is real, but its design follows the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge rather than the Golden Gate, and it was built by the American company behind that bridge. It opened in 1966 as the Salazar Bridge, named for Portugal’s prime minister, and was renamed 25 de Abril after the date the Carnation Revolution began in 1974. Locals took the old name off the bridge themselves in the days after the coup.
Keep walking and the Torre de Belém comes into view, the 16th-century watchtower in the river that is the other face of Belém. Charming from outside, and again we did not go in, because after Sintra neither of us could face another interior. We had lunch by the water and spent the afternoon doing nothing in the Praça Afonso de Albuquerque, eating ice cream in the shade and half-listening to a large group of Flemish lads playing football, which is a very specific pleasure when you are Belgian and abroad.
Escape to the beach from Lisbon to Cascais
Escaping to the beach from Lisbon means the Cascais train, and it leaves from Cais do Sodré every 20 minutes for a ride of 33 to 40 minutes along the coast. We had already dropped the car off, so the train was the only option, and on a hot day at the end of a city trip it was the right one. The line runs beside the water for most of its length, so sit on the left going out.
Buy the ticket before you get to the platform, and preferably before you get to the station. This is the part of our trip I would most like back. The ticket hall at Cais do Sodré had long queues, I tried the machines instead, the first one had run out of paper and the second took only coins while I had a note. Boyfriend queued at the counter and picked the one line that did not move. It took us 40 minutes to buy a ticket for a 40-minute journey. A single to Cascais costs €2.55, and a reusable Navegante card loaded with Zapping credit skips the counter entirely. If you are coming to Lisbon by rail or coach from elsewhere in Europe, it is worth comparing train and bus fares across Portugal and Spain at the same time, because the long-distance tickets and the local ones are bought in completely different places.
Cascais itself was the easiest afternoon of the trip. The station is a five-minute walk from the sand and you can simply follow everyone else. We walked the small car-free streets in the town first, had lunch in a pastry bar and then followed the coast west, past the ocean on one side and large houses and hotels on the other, until the heat sent us back. On the way out we had noticed a small beach away from the centre with actual shade, and we spent the rest of the afternoon there. I do not normally lie in the shade at the beach. That day I did.
Cascais is the shortest of the coastal escapes from the city, and there are longer ones. Our guide to day trips from Lisbon covers Sintra, Óbidos, Évora and the rest, with how to reach each one.
I will go back to Portugal to see the south. I may give Lisbon another chance while I am there, and the January visit suggests I should.
Lisbon FAQ
Is Lisbon worth visiting?
Lisbon is worth visiting, and it is worth visiting for less time than most itineraries give it. The city’s strengths are Alfama, the miradouros, the pastries, the light on the river and the day trips within an hour of it. Its weakness is the compact tourist core between Praça do Comércio and Restauradores, which is where most visitors spend most of their stay and where almost everything I disliked happened.
How many days do you need in Lisbon?
Two days is enough for the centre and Belém, and a third day only pays off if you spend it out of the city. We had three and the third one dragged. If you have four or five days, give two to Lisbon and the rest to Sintra, Cascais, Setúbal or the Arrábida coast.
Is Lisbon too touristy?
The centre of Lisbon is too touristy in summer, and the rest of the city is not. The pressure concentrates in Baixa, Alfama’s main lanes, Belém and the two tram routes, and it drops off sharply in Campo de Ourique, Graça, Estrela and Alcântara. Going in winter changes the experience more than choosing a different neighbourhood does.
Why do people say Lisbon is overrated?
People call Lisbon overrated when they spend their whole stay inside the tourist ring, where the restaurant touting, the crowding on tram 28 and the street selling are at their worst. It is a fair complaint about a small part of the city and an unfair one about the city as a whole.
When is the quietest time to visit Lisbon?
November to February is the quietest time to visit Lisbon, and January is the emptiest month of all. I went back in January and the difference was the whole point: the same streets, a fraction of the people, and restaurants happy to have you. Days are mild rather than warm and the beach is out, so it is a city break rather than a coast trip. Christmas brings its own crowds for a few weeks, and our guide to Lisbon’s Christmas markets covers that window.
WonderfulWanderings Pro Tips
The 5 tips below come from the three days we spent walking Lisbon and from re-checking every price and address on this page in September 2026.
- Buy a Navegante card before you go anywhere near a ticket counter. We lost 40 minutes queueing at Cais do Sodré for a Cascais ticket, on a journey that takes 33 to 40 minutes. A single to Cascais is €2.55, an on-board tram ticket is €3.30 and the Glória, Bica and Lavra lifts charge €4.30 for up to two rides, so the card pays for itself on day one.
- Sit down inside at Pastéis de Belém rather than joining the pavement queue. The queue outside is the takeaway counter. The seating at the back is far larger than the frontage suggests and a waiter reached us within seconds of sitting down.
- Skip Castelo de São Jorge if you have already done Sintra. Adult entry is €17 and older guides still quote €7.50. We looked at the crowd, walked away and used the free miradouros instead, and having just come from the Sintra palaces I have never regretted it.
- Visit the Jardim Botânico Tropical on a Sunday morning or not at all. Entry is €8 for adults now, and free from 10.00 to 13.00 on Sundays. We paid to get in on a weekday and found the poorest botanical garden either of us had walked through.
- Walk past any restaurant that sends someone onto the pavement for you. Both places we ate on the Restauradores strip have since closed, and the two we liked least were the two that worked hardest to get us through the door. The Jardim Botânico de Lisboa’s gate is on Rua da Escola Politécnica while you are up there, not on the Avenida da Liberdade side.
About the author. This guide is written and maintained by the Wonderful Wanderings editorial team. Wonderful Wanderings was founded in 2012 by Sofie Couwenbergh, and the first-hand notes on Alfama, Belém, Restauradores and Cascais come from the three days she spent walking Lisbon on a Portugal road trip that also took in Sintra. The team covers Portugal for independent travellers, including the hostels and hotels, the restaurants, the day trips and the tours worth booking, and updates this page when prices, opening hours and venues change.
Sorry to hear you didn’t like Lisbon, I went there in October a few years ago and it was not too busy and the weather was still good enough. As you said maybe it was not for you, I had the same experience when I went to Barcelona a city that most people love when they visit…not for me.
I actually went to Barcelona for the second time last month and loved it – again:-)
Maybe I shouldn’t have gone during high season, but even then I think I wouldn’t have liked it as much.
I must agree with you. After hearing great stories about Lisbon, my husbant and I are very dissapointed. Portugal is our 33. country and we have visited a lot of countries more than once. We travel by car and arrange everything by ourselves. The first thing we noticed was that hosts were not telling the truth- while searching for an accomodation, we realized they say that the bathroom is private, but actually it is shared. One guy even rents a room and a bathroom in his own appartment, not informing you about that. At that moment I realized that something smells bad about Lisbon. The city itself was not charming for us. It is not clean- there is a bad smell everywhere. I felt empty. Turkey, Tuscany and southern Italy as well as Andalucia are much better places. Also, they seem as non interested in tourism. They should be more organized. I was not impressed with food. Sweets- go to Turkey to see the variety of sweets. In Lisbon a lot of them are ” breadish” like brownies- that kind. For sea food I prefer Greece, Croatia and Montenegro. Beggars were extremely rude: ” You two die, you motherf…” in pure English. Ruined buildings- better experience in Naples. We don’t like the ocean- we prefer charming Mediterranian. Palace de Pena- hmmmm- did not like it. Go to Russia to see where tzars were living and relaxing. I can continue more, but I won’t. We will not come back- that is fore sure.
There is a bad smell everywhere in Lisbon?
Dude?!?
maybe your nose was “rooting” !
Visited Lisbon twice. Interesting city but clearly overrated. Too decadent and dirty for my taste and has sold its soul to mass tourism.
I should really write a new article because I’ve been living here for 2+ years now and absolutely love it :)
Sorry you didn’t enjoy Lisbon, but some of the choices you made were not the best. Portuguese food is great and with a bit of research, you could have done much better. Had you stopped at one of the little places in Alfama, you could have eaten well for less. Also, you should have gone into Jeronimos Monestery-at least the church, which is free. It is also the final resting place of Vasco da Gama. For your next time, the best museums to visit are the
1) National Coach Museum (at least as long as it is located in the former riding school, right at Praca do Albuquerque)
2) National Tile Museum (Azulejos) – Portugal is known for it’s tiles
3) Museu do Oriente – with items from all over Asia, highlighting Portugal’s historical ties to Asia
4) Gulbenkian Museum – great for art lovers, world renowned, beautifully laid out
5) Oceanarium – Has a great reputation as one of the World’s top aquariums, and is located in the Park of the Nations.
Lisbon is not a sanitized city. It is in need of some TLC and more restoration, but it has so much to offer. I hope you give it another chance.
I know we didn’t make the right choices, especially food wise, but I did have amazing dinners all over Portugal.
I don’t know what it was, but something about Lisbon lowered our motivation a bit. We didn’t feel like searching for things that much and we really felt like we had to search.
Great tips on the museums!
I had looked some of them up before, but it felt a shame spending time inside when the weather was so beautiful.
You’ve convinced me to give it another go. Maybe when I travel to Portugal to explore the south some time:-)
The fact that the cops were allowing drug sales right there would have been a huge turn off for me too. I’m planning on going to Lisbon and Porto soon, hopefully in the next 2 months, and I hope I like it!
Plus, when your day ends with an ice cream like that one covered in fruit, I think it’s hard not to be happy! I always make it a point to try the local food somewhere in a country, but if you get a craving for something like Italian I think it’s fine to go for it once in awhile!
Oh I looooooved Porto! Much more than Lisbon.
Be sure to let me know what you thought of both cities when you get back.
I agree with you on the food. It would be a shame not to try out local dishes, but if you’re in the mood for something ‘un-local’ and it’s there, then why not go for it?
Didn’t like at all! I was even shocked (in a bad way)
Why’s that?
It’s a shame you didn’t enjoy Lisbon, one of my best friends lives there and I do try to visit whenever I can. Like you, I really like Alfama – there is just something about the place. I also agree with you on the food. For some reason I am just not into Portuesese food. I don’t like seafood or fish, and I find their meat dishes really heavy, so I think I might well try your Italian next time around. The cakes though, mmmm, that is a whole different matter!
I did actually like the food in Portugal. We just pciked the wrong place in Lisbon.
But yes, the pastries. Mmmmm the pastries! Gained a few kilos there:D
hello!
I am so sorry that you didn’t like lisbon.
Portuguese food is not only seafood and fish, there are so many other choices, you just have to take some time to get to know it, even in a short visit. in the north and in Alentejo you find a huge menu of, well, everything, but in a very particular and portuguese way. About your ‘italian’ meal, 40€ is way-off what you should be paying. I know that restaurant and I live in Italy so you’ve paid too much, sorry for that.
Everytime I return to Lisbon I actually find myself among turists, so I do understand what you wrote about it but it really depends on your ‘walking awayyyyy’ from ‘turistic trails’. if you ever return just twist things a bit.
About the ‘drug dealers’: that police-dealers-police-turists-dealers thing is going on for a long long time and its really just annoying. they do it to everyone, from old couples, to locals, to teens and to basically anyone. I’ve seen police intervention but they manage to slip away, its just grrrr. It doesn’t mean that police or the locals support this situation. In the north of Italy, as in some parts of Paris or Brussels you see exactly the same thing.
About Lisbon: there is something about this city (the same applies to porto), please trust this. but what I am talking about is not on guides, not even lonely planet or le cool guides. you just have to go there and find it (very simbolic thinking, sorry, that you could write about 100 different cities around the world). If there is a next time search for: Miradouro de São Pedro de Alcântara; the very typical neighbourhood of Graça (just next to the Castel); at Graça shop, on a tuesday morning, in Feira da Ladra; go to the little coffee house in Praça do Carmo; see the gardens of Gulbenkian. For contemporary art, go to Culturgest or go back to Gulbenkian and ask for the contemporary exhbition. For more classical art, Museu de Arte Antiga, from where you can see all the extension of the river. Ride the yellow tram from Baixa to Graça in the end of the day, when the light goes out and then you serarch for a little, non guide, restaurant, where you can eat a very nice meal for 25€ (including wine) or if you go in the street behind the National Theatre you can try and find a perfect nepalese restaurant. Because Lisbon is also made from this mix-culture.
Hey Ana,
I actually did like Portuguese food a lot. That one restaurant we went to in Lisbon was just bad.
We had great meals in other cities.
I know we paid more at the Italian restaurant than we would have paid in Italy, but for that price we got a very nice meal there with great service and in a nice place. For that same price we got a crappy meal in a not so nice other place. (Please also keep in mind that price was for 2 people, not 1)
Do mind that we were in a really touristy area that time, which of course also made the prices go up.
Next time we definitely need to get off the tourist trail more an explore other parts of Lisbon. Somehow we just weren’t up for it this time.
To be honest I’ve never seen a police man stand two meters away from a drug dealer and just let him try to sell things to people, neither in Brussels nor in Paris. Of course it’s possible that it happens, but I’ve never seen it happen and especially not as obviously as I did in Lisbon.
I truly believe you when you say there is something about Lisbon. A lot of people I know absolutely love the city, so I’m sure there are a lot of great things to find there. Our experience just wasn’t that great. That doesn’t mean I’m saying the city is awful; I’m just saying I didn’t like it during our first visit there.
Thanks so much for all your tips. I will definitely take them into account next time I visit Lisbon!
:)
It is interesting to hear about your experience in Lisbon. I was there in 2007 and really liked it. It was not touristy or expensive. It sounds like things have changed since then.
I did not get to make it to Porto because I decided to go to Seville instead. Hopefully next time I will make it to Porto.
I really liked Porto, both the center as the beach side. I’m curious if you’d like it better than Lisbon as well.
You didn`t like Lisbon? :)) Hard for me not to like it, I actually love this city and would go back there whenever possible. But you were right about the dealers etc. I was pretty shocked when I was approached by one. However, this did not change my opinion about the city.
Nopes, not that much. I might give it a second chance someday:)
Thank you for your comment. You’ll see I’ve removed the links. I’m already using commentluv so no need to self-promote even more:)
Thanks!https://wonderfulwanderings.com/wp-admin/edit-comments.php#comments-form
I didn’t like Lisbon when I first visited either. I felt it was dirty, full of traffic and filled with tons of people (what city isn’t like that, though?).
However, I have been here in Portugal for 14 years and the more I travel to Lisbon the more I love it.
There are so many fascinating little nooks and crannies in the city that it really pays to research it well before you go. I found a great site https://www.spottedbylocals.com/lisbon/ and it was pretty helpful.
Knowing locals also helps and we get to visit some incredible restaurants. One of which is on the southern bank of the river called “Ponto Final”.
Thanks for the tip Nick.
I know of spottedbylocals but have to say I haven’t really used it to plan a trip yet. I probably should though.
Lisbon is full of activity and tihngs to do. You just need to do a little research. Let me help you with that and i´m sure your next time in Lisbon will be awesome.
I strongly recomend Best Trip Vouchers that is a “all in one package”. You don´t need anything more, because it´s a guide, with free transfers in Lisbon, maps, app with GPS, discount vouchers in all things that matter, tips and many more. Enjoy :)
Hi João,
Thanks for commenting.
Do you work for Best Trip Vouchers? I see you’ve been putting that link on other sites as a comment as well… I deleted the link as I saw that app isn’t live yet and I don’t allow advertising that’s not really useful to my readers in the comments.
Thanks for understanding.
Hello Sofie!
I´m a school teacher but Bestripvouchers is my brother´s company and I strongly believe in the project. The app will be available in the appstore next monday. All the other services are working and with the best feedbacks.
Thank you for promoting Lisbon!
And thank you for the additional information:)
Those drug dealers don’t sell real drugs, but fake ones: crushed bay leaves. The police knows that and can’t do nothing.
Is that so? I’ve heard other people tell me otherwise but then still, it’s kind of dodgy:)
To buy real drugs in Lisbon its like in other countries… a dealer at night near some bar or disco in a dark narrow street, or at poor areas in the suburbs, etc. The guys selling drugs in the streets during the day are portuguese gypsies, and those drugs are 100% fake. They are annoying as hell, however the police can do nothing because the laws dont say nothing about fake drugs. Another problem is the fact that those dealers are usually gypsies, and the police can’t be more agressive with them, because they fear being acused of racism, etc. Thus they prefer to ignore them.
That is so. It’s a game. The so-called dealers (and the mules that serve as go-betweens) can’t get busted for selling drugs, because … well, it’s a handful of herbs.
Occasionally you will see physical altercations with them, but that’s usually a duped tourist who is irate that they were sold something other than advertised. They usually get a beat down.
But that attention is bad for business. The police frequently enter the neighborhood in force (vans full of cops) and scatter them all for hours.
And yes, sadly other tourists have to suffer because some tourists insist on giving money to con artists and keep them in business. Overtourism is killing neighborhoods all around the planet.
Thanks for your input, Sven
I’m really sorry your experience in Lisbon wasn’t the best one – you’d need more time to actually get to know the city. With all do respect, it is impossible to get to know a place in 3 days, or at least to get to know it well enough to be able to say something truthful about it. You’re lacking a real basis to set your opinion on. I’ve been to places that I hated for the first week – being because I was unlucky and had bad experiences or because i wasn’t in the right mood – and after a while those places ended up winning my heart- And the contrary has happened as well. That is why all travel writers should be very careful when writing things about a place they barely know – they might make a poor judgment out of it and will end up influencing other people into thinking the same.
On another topic, the “drug dealers” are not selling real drugs, it’s a scam. They sell oregano and bay leaves paste, which is why the police cannot actually do anything. Of course that doesn’t take from the fact that it’s annoying and something should be done about it.
Great travels,
Kél
Hey Kél, thanks for commenting!
I never claimed I knew the place after visiting and I agree with you that one needs a lot of time in a place to really get to know it. This was just my impression and experience as a first-time visitor. That also means it’s not a matter of truth or untruth, but just a matter or personal opinion and experience. I’d never say a place is bad, I always make clear I, personally, didn’t like it when I visited if that was the case. That’s why people follow blogs, after all, to learn about the personal experiences of the bloggers.
Wishing you great travels too!
I’m sorry you didn’t enjoy Lisbon, one of the most beautiful cities in Europe, but then, the way you describe things kinda shows you weren’t in the mood for it.
I find your food choices astonishing. Pizza and coke? You can have that almost anywhere in the world. When you go to Italy do you eat at a Portuguese restaurant? When you go to Spain do you shop at Portuguese shops? I find it incredible that you include so many paragraphs of a day in Lisbon spent in an Italian restaurant (twice in just 2 days!), a restaurant with a Spanish name and a Spanish shopping mall…
I suggest you change the post title to “Walking through Lisbon, Portugal in a not so good mood”.
If you give it a second try:
Bacalhau
Sardinhas
Pasteis de Nata
Café
Belém
Mosteiro dos Jerónimos
CCB
Panteão
Feira da Ladra
Red/White wine (cheaper than the cokes you had)
Marisqueiras (sea food reastaurants)
Cervejarias (meet and beer restaurants)
Tascas: small places to eat like locals
Pratos do dia: cheap dish of the day for lunch like locals eat
Bust most of all, bring a smile and good mood, I’m sure the city will smile back.
Dear Paulo,
Thanks for commenting!
As I stated, I indeed probably wasn’t in the right mood for Lisbon. That being said, I wasn’t grumpy. I’m rarely grumpy :)
Still, it was odd as we both loved everything else about our Portugal trip and, believe me, we eat only local in all of the other destinations we visited :) We had bacalhau and sardinhas and many other seafood and meat dishes.
Sometimes a place just doesn’t “feel” entirely right and I hope you understand that’s a personal feeling and probably what caused us to not dive into Lisbon more and get to know it better.
I actually have a separate post about Belém, an area we did really like and where we had pasteis de nata :)
I also want to thank you for your restaurant recommendations. I’ll surely keep them in mind if I ever go back, which I’m sure I will.
Lisbon used to be a nice place to visit but it changed completely over the past 5 years. Now it’s just an artificial and stressful city packed with tourists everywhere. It became the perfect place to have coffee at Starbucks, have fast-food at international food chains or expensive dinners at the latest Butanese restaurant, cross thousands of useless souvenir shops full of made in China products, queue for anything slightly interesting while pickpockets do their job, squeeze and bump into other tourists in overcrowded side walks and not being able to meet and talk to a single Portuguese resident with a non-tourist job. It also became a very expensive city with dinner costing 40 euros/person and hotels averaging 100 euros/night. If you want to experience the Portuguese culture and gastronomy for 1/3 of those prices then run away from Lisbon as fast as you can. I hate to say this but overtourism killed Lisbon and its authenticity. I’d recommend other places in Portugal that are still not that popular such as Braga/Guimaraes/Geres/Coimbra/Aveiro in the North, Sintra/Guincho/Cascais/Evora/Sesimbra/Arrabida/Comporta close to Lisbon or Costa Vicentina/Algarve (Lagos, Tavira, Vilamoura) in the South.
Hey Pedro,
Thanks so much for your elaborate comment.
I still need to update this article as I went back to Lisbon in January to give it another try and have to say I had a much better time but I did stay away from practically all of the tourist sights and stayed in a residential neighborhood as well.
Oh, and I only went to local coffee bars and restaurants :-)
I visited Braga, Guimaraes, Coimbra, Sintra, and Cascais on the same trip as well and loved all of those. Thinking of going to the Algarve next year :-)
If you go to the Algarve you really have to go to Costa Vicentina before it gets known. It’s the hidden gem of Portugal and I shouldn’t be really saying this on a blog :-)
Hahaha, in that case, I extra appreciate the tip :)
And please write about other places in Portugal on the blogs. All I can see is an overhype on social media and blogs about Lisbon and this is negative for tourists and Lisbon residents. Unfortunately, our politicians are far from understanding this so I truly hope that the blog community takes the lead on this. Hope you really enjoy your next visit to Portugal as we have dozens of paradises in here, specially along the coast.
Hey Pedro,
I wrote about all the other places I visited on that trip already way back in 2012. If you had done a search, you would have found those articles :) I have posts about Coimbra, Porto, Sintra, Guimaraes, Braga and a few other smaller places.
They need to be updated as I wrote them when I only just started blogging, but they’re there and I plan to create a new itinerary for them as well :)
Pedro’s post is the one most resonating with me. He clearly describes the evolution that Lisbon has went through.. for those tourists new to Lisbon they will probably not be able to recognise what his post was illustrating, for those who have been to Lisbon ages ago know exactly what he means.. unfortunately, it has become an “attraction park” for tourists with all of its previous charm and authenticity taken away.. it’s quite disgusting to see how once beautiful cities totally get raped and negatively transformed by tourists who – ironically – look for “unspoilt” destinations…
We visited Portugal for the first time February 2019. We loved Lisbon, Coimbra and Porto all the same as they were quite distinct from one another. As for your dislike of Lisbon, it does sound like several factors contributed. We stayed in an Airbnb on the border of Principe Real neighborhood on the end of a quiet street with neighbors hanging out their clothes & a small local grocery store and pizzeria down the street. Just far enough from the center, yet close enough to walk or catch an Uber. We were never approached by drug dealers. Portugal’s history of decriminalizing drugs back in the 1960’s was a policy that shifted the whole drug addiction/criminal aspect of controlling it. In my opinion, a humane approach. I know there’s a lot more to explore about Lisbon and would love to go back.
Hey Charlotte,
Thanks for your comment!
My second trip to Lisbon recently went way better. Still have to update this post to reflect that :)
Sad to ear that you didn’t like Lisbon, it’s my favorite city. But i also see that you changed you mind, excellent.
A few things that you got wrong, 1st police doens’t tolerate drug dealers, drugs are not legal in Lisbon. Those guys in the city center are selling “false” drugs, most of the time pressed bays leaves, police can’t do nothing since they are not selling drugs. It’s annoying but there ins’t a real danger there. I ‘m so sorry that nobody explained that to you…
As for the weather, you didn’t make your homework, yes Lisbon can be quiet hot during the summer, the hills doens’t make walking easier but it’s also a plus since the weather is magnificent with clear blues skies. Lisbon is soooooooo beautiful and picturesque, don’t let the crowds destroy your trip, please. Lisbon>>>>>Barcelona
As for the tourists, yes Lisbon is getting very popular, add to that the cruise ships and you’ll get a lot of tourists in the city center. Again, you need to do some homework and avoid the tourist traps, a big red flag are restaurants with several languages menu.
Lastly , the beach. Cascais and Costa da Caparica are the places were ALL Lisbon beach fans goes during the weekends, add the tourists and you can see how easily the beaches can get crowded. Still, there are some pretty good places that get fewer people. The Algarve is even worst during summer times. If you need tips, please ask me.
I want to see your update
Hey Luis,
Thanks for the elaborate comment!
I did indeed change my mind :) I will just need a bit of time for that update as I have a lot of travel planned the following months.
In regards to your comments:
1. Someone else noted this about the drugs as well. It’s indeed a bit of a shame that there’s no more information about it. I think lots of people will leave with the wrong impression because of this.
2. We did look up the weather beforehand and it didn’t bother us at all during the rest of our trip. I’m pretty sure it also wouldn’t have bothered us in Lisbon if we’d like the city better on our first city. It was just something that turned negative as we were having a not so good experience, you know?
3. Definitely agree on the tourist traps. I’m a more experienced traveler now and I think at that point, we may have also just been a bit tired and lazy.
4. I’m sorry you felt I was negative about Cascais. I didn’t mean to be. We enjoyed it there.
Hi ,thank you for sharing your blog post…It so helpful!!! give me some advice.I will wait for your reply
Thanks
Im Portuguese and I travel a lot. I can tell you the Portuguese cousine is one of the best in europe. There’s a lot of great traditional restaurants in Lisbon. I think you just not picked the good ones. The Beaches near Lisbon are the worst beaches in the country. You need to go to Alentejo beaches or Ericeira and upper to find the good ones.
Lisbon is not the best city to visit in Portugal. Is overpriced, it stinks, and the local government don’t care about cleaning or keeping the city streets in good condition. Traffic is a problem inside the city and the air quality is getting worse. In my opinion nowadays the best things to visit in Portugal is places like Serra da Estrela, Gerês, Alqueva, Minho and Trás os Montes. Porto is also good and is not so overcrowded like Lisbon.
People of Lisbon are not civilised, if you go to Cais do Sodré by night you will see tons of trash in the floor. I feel bad to say this things about the city I was born, but is the truth. I quit living in Lisbon years ago because all the stupid things I saw every day. Cars parked on the sidewalks, trash, overpriced flats etc etc etc.
However Portugal and Lisbon are full of history and distinct culture. Portugal is one of the oldest countries in the world and europe. Our gastronomy is the best, and the people are very welcoming.
If you come again, try to visit the snall villages , lagoons and beaches like Santa Cruz, Peniche, Baleal, Troia, Galé, Porto Covo, Vila Nova de Mil Fontes etc. Algarve beaches are also great but in high seasons is very overpriced and overcrowded.
Thanks so much for taking the time to comment, Luis.
As you may have seen, I’ve since visited Lisbon again and liked it a lot better.
I was a much more inexperienced traveler when I visited the first time and am sure I made a few mistakes back then. When I went back earlier this year, I had amazing food every day :) And I made a note of the places you mentioned for future trips to Portugal, as I’ll definitely be back!
We are in Lisbon now for 9 days and we are traveling out every day because Lisbon is really disgusting, trash everywhere, queues (its portugal national sport) and its extremly everpriced, 5 euro for one half liter beer, tahts crazy, in my country I have beer for 1.5 euro. Whole city is destroyed and dirty and people are not kind, especially fat black women.
My husband and I are currently in Lisbon. It stinks of sewerage and people smoke, especially cigars. Butts are strewn everywhere.
The buildings desperately need washing and painting. We are travelling around Portugal for 3 weeks. I hope the other towns are better.
Not impressed.