Lisbon in 2 Days

Praça da Figueira, north-east corner, with the card already loaded. The 15E is the long modern tram, not the yellow 28, and reaches the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos stop in about 25 minutes, our estimate, past the Cais do Sodré station and the bridge. Sit on the left for the river.

The Coach Museum is the stop before; you come back to it after lunch.

At the cloister door on Praça do Império for the 09:30 opening. €18 adult, 50% off for over-65s, 13 to 24s and families, free under 12; the reserved cloister ticket is the same price with a date on it and no ticket-office line, which at 09:30 is short and at 11:00 is the length of the square. The two-storey cloister and the upper choir take an hour; the refectory's tile panels are the room people walk past. The church is not connected inside: it is a separate free door, next.

The church's west portal opens to visitors at 10:30 Tuesday to Saturday and at 14:00 on Sundays, after mass, and costs nothing. Vasco da Gama's tomb is on the left inside the door, Camões's on the right, and the vault above the nave is the reason to look up. Twenty minutes.

Rua de Belém 84–92, open daily 08:00–21:00 and until 22:00 from 1 July to 30 September. Two lines: takeaway at the counter, table service in the rooms behind. The shop prints no prices on its site and neither do we.

Fifteen minutes, then the underpass to the river.

With two days there is time for the top: €10 adult, €5 for 13 to 25s, daily 10:00–19:00 from March to September with last entry at 18:30, a lift to the platform above Henry the Navigator's head. The ticket includes the exhibition and a film; the platform is the reason, looking down on the compass rose and across to the tower. Half an hour, then west along the promenade.

Timed entry since the 27 May 2026 reopening, €15 adult with the state-monument reductions, booked on the official Museus e Monumentos site; a 12:00 or 12:30 slot fits this plan and should be the first thing you book. The tower's own English page opens it at 09:00 and its Portuguese page at 09:30, which is one reason the plan does not start here. Spiral stair, four terraces, the river from the top; 45 minutes with the wait on the footbridge.

Sold out? The Belém walking tour with the cloister ticket sees it from the outside with the story attached.

Walk back east along Avenida da Índia to the 2015 museum building at number 136, open Tuesday to Sunday 10:00–18:00 with last entry at 17:30, €15 adult. The gilded state coaches of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in a hall built to show them; the old Picadeiro Real across the road is priced separately and the museum does not state how much. The entry ticket with audio guide adds the commentary.

An hour, and the tram stop is outside.

About 20 minutes east. The square is the earthquake's replacement for the royal palace, and the Rua Augusta arch on its north side has a viewpoint at €5, daily 10:00–19:00, last entry 18:30, by lift and 74 steps; free with the Lisboa Card. Twenty minutes if you take it.

Then up Rua Augusta and left into Rua do Carmo for the slope to Chiado.

Largo do Carmo, the roofless Gothic nave the 1755 earthquake left standing, open Monday to Saturday 10:00–19:00 from May to October and to 18:00 in winter, closed Sundays, €7 adult and €5 for students, over-65s and Lisboa Card holders, no booking. Half an hour under the arches, with the archaeological museum in the apse. The Santa Justa lift's upper walkway lands beside the square and is closed; the square is reached on foot from Rua Garrett.

Rua Garrett from the Carmo square: the Bertrand bookshop, the Brasileira café with the bronze poet outside, the theatre square at Largo de São Carlos. It is the shopping and coffee hour of the day and needs no ticket; the Chiado guide names the cafés that predate the 1988 fire. Then Rua da Misericórdia uphill towards the viewpoint.

The terrace at the top of the closed Glória funicular, facing the castle across the valley of Baixa, with the tiled map of the skyline along the balustrade. The funicular has been closed since 3 September 2025 and bus 51E replaces it from Restauradores; from Chiado it is a level 8 minutes along Rua da Misericórdia. Sunset times are not stated anywhere official; be here an hour before dark and the castle lights up while you wait.

Bairro Alto's grid is behind the viewpoint and its restaurants open around now, before the bars take over the streets after 22:00; the Bairro Alto guide has the ones to book. The alternative is the water: the two-hour sunset boat with a welcome drink leaves from the riverside below Chiado and passes under the bridge at dusk, rated 4.6 by 4,195 travellers, cancellable free 24 hours before. Pick the boat if day two is the fado night.

Get up the hill before the ramparts fill: bus 737 from Praça da Figueira stops at the gate on the 24-hour ticket, or it is a 12-minute climb from the cathedral. €17 adult, €8.50 for 13 to 25s, €14 over 65, free under 12 and with the Lisboa Card; the e-ticket with audio guide skips the window and the skip-the-line ticket with a guide adds a 15-minute introduction. The walls, the eleven towers and the west terrace over Baixa take an hour and a quarter; the peacocks are free.

Down from the castle gate by Rua de Santa Cruz do Castelo to the two terraces above Alfama, tiled and planted, with the Pantheon dome and the river below. Tram 28 stops between them and its passengers get off here, which is why the kiosk coffee is worth the wait. Ten minutes, then down Rua do Limoeiro to the cathedral.

The Sé, twelfth-century and built like a fort, €7 for the full circuit of naves, high choir, bell-tower balcony and treasury, €5 with the Lisboa Card, free under 6. Closed Sundays and holy days; from May to October open 09:30–19:00 on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday and 10:00–18:00 on Wednesday and Saturday, last entry 45 minutes before closing. Forty minutes, then back up through Alfama's eastern lanes towards Campo de Santa Clara.

The white dome you have been looking at since the castle, the church of Santa Engrácia that took nearly three centuries to finish, €10 adult, Tuesday to Sunday 10:00–18:00 from April to September and to 17:00 in winter, closed Mondays. The terrace around the dome has the best view of Alfama's roofs and the river; the tombs below are Amália Rodrigues and Eusébio among the presidents. The Pantheon entry ticket fixes the date.

Forty minutes. On Tuesdays and Saturdays the Feira da Ladra flea market fills the square outside.

Three minutes from the Pantheon, the monastery of São Vicente is the Monday substitute and the tile-panel church: €8 adult, €6 over 65, €4 under 25, €6 with the Lisboa Card, open daily 10:00–19:00 from June to October and to 18:00 the rest of the year, with the roof terrace as the second-best view on the hill. Take it if the Pantheon was quick, skip it if lunch is calling. Lunch is down in Alfama: Rua dos Remédios and Largo do Chafariz de Dentro have the small tabernas, and the Alfama guide names the ones that open at midday.

Walk or take the metro one stop from Terreiro do Paço to Cais do Sodré, then the Transtejo ferry to Cacilhas: €1.60 with zapping credit on the navegante card since 16 March 2026, ten minutes across, our estimate, and the view back at the city from the water is the reason to go this way rather than by taxi over the bridge. The single paper fare is in a tariff PDF we could not parse, so we print the zapping one. From Cacilhas pier, the local bus up to the sanctuary is the usual route; the bus number and fare are not stated on any official page we could read, so ask at the pier or take the 30-minute uphill walk.

The 1959 statue on the south bank faces the whole city across the bridge, and the lift to the terrace at its feet costs €10 from age 13, €3 for ages 8 to 12, free under 8; open 10:00–19:00 from April to September and to 18:00 the rest of the year, last ascent 20 minutes before closing. The ticket includes the chapel and the multimedia room. It is the one view in which the castle, Belém and the bridge all sit in one frame, and the Ponte 25 de Abril page explains the bridge you are looking along.

Forty minutes, then the same way back.

The ferry lands you back at Cais do Sodré, and the Time Out Market is across the road in the old Mercado da Ribeira: free entry, 26 restaurant counters and 8 bars under one roof, open 10:00 to midnight Sunday to Wednesday and to 02:00 Thursday to Saturday. An early plate here is the fix if lunch was small; Pink Street behind it is for later. Then the metro or the flat riverside walk back east for the last evening.

Back where the day started, one hill lower. The 50-minute fado show with a glass of wine in a medieval room, rated 4.8 by 6,715 travellers, or the Lisboa em Fado show with port at €14, both by the sitting with the 19:00 one selling first. Dinner afterwards on Rua dos Remédios; the walk to the Terreiro do Paço metro is about 10 minutes and flat, and the last train leaves at 01:00.

A Baixa district food tour with dinner at €79 is the version where somebody else picks the tabernas.