Lisbon in 3 Days

The 15E is the modern articulated tram from the north-east corner of Praça da Figueira, not the yellow 28, and it reaches the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos stop in about 25 minutes, our estimate; no cash on board, so load the card at a metro machine first. The Coach Museum is the stop before, and you return to it after lunch.

Be at the cloister door on Praça do Império for the 09:30 opening; the line then is short and by 11:00 it crosses the square. €18 adult, half price for over-65s, 13 to 24s and families, free under 12; the reserved cloister ticket is the same €18 with the date fixed and the ticket office skipped. The cloister's two storeys and the upper choir take an hour; the church is a separate free door with its own hours, next.

The church opens to visitors at 10:30 Tuesday to Saturday and at 14:00 on Sundays, free, with Vasco da Gama's tomb inside the door. Then three minutes along Rua de Belém to the pastry shop at 84–92, open daily 08:00–21:00 and to 22:00 from 1 July to 30 September, with separate lines for the counter and the rooms behind; the shop prints no prices on its site.

Through the underpass to the river and along to the 1960 monument. With three days there is time for the viewpoint, €10 adult and €5 for 13 to 25s, daily 10:00–19:00 from March to September with last entry at 18:30, lift to the platform; the compass rose in the pavement is the photo from up there. Half an hour, then west along the promenade to the tower.

Reopened on 27 May 2026 after conservation works with slot-based entry, €15 adult, booked only on the official Museus e Monumentos site; a 12:00 or 12:30 slot fits this plan and is the second booking to make after Pena. The official English page opens the tower at 09:00 and the Portuguese page at 09:30, which is one reason the day does not start here. The spiral stair and four terraces take 45 minutes with the footbridge wait.

If the calendar is empty, the Belém walking tour with the cloister ticket sees the tower from outside with the story attached.

Back east along Avenida da Índia to the museum at number 136, Tuesday to Sunday 10:00–18:00 with last entry at 17:30, €15 adult, the state coaches of the Portuguese court in a hall built in 2015 to hold them; the ticket with audio guide adds the commentary, and the old riding school across the road is priced separately at a figure the museum does not state. An hour, with the tram stop outside. MAAT, €16 and open Wednesday to Monday 10:00–19:00, is the alternative for anyone who would rather have contemporary art than gilt.

About 20 minutes east to the square that replaced the royal palace after 1755. The Rua Augusta arch viewpoint is €5, daily 10:00–19:00 with last entry 18:30, by lift and 74 steps, free with the Lisboa Card; twenty minutes. The Ask Me Lisboa desk in the square, daily 10:00–19:00, is where a Lisboa Card is collected.

Up Rua do Carmo, on foot since the Santa Justa lift beside it closed, to Largo do Carmo and the roofless Gothic nave of the earthquake, Monday to Saturday 10:00–19:00 from May to October and to 18:00 in winter, closed Sundays, €7 adult, €5 with the Lisboa Card, no booking; half an hour. Then Rua Garrett and the Chiado cafés and bookshops for the hour that needs no ticket.

Level along Rua da Misericórdia from Chiado, about 8 minutes, to the terrace above the closed Glória funicular, with the castle across the valley and a tiled key to the skyline on the balustrade. Bus 51E replaces the funicular from Restauradores. Sunset times are not stated anywhere official; arrive an hour before dark.

Dinner is in the Bairro Alto grid behind you, before the bars take the streets after 22:00, or on the water: the two-hour sunset boat with a welcome drink passes under the bridge at dusk.

Bus 737 from Praça da Figueira climbs to the gate on the 24-hour ticket; on foot it is about 12 minutes up 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 ticket with a 15-minute guided introduction explains the walls before you walk them. Open daily 09:00–21:00 from March to October, last admission 20:30. The ramparts, the eleven towers and the west terrace over Baixa take an hour and a quarter.

Down past the two tiled terraces above Alfama, where tram 28 unloads, and on down Rua do Limoeiro to the Sé. €7 for the tourist circuit of naves, high choir, bell-tower balcony and treasury, €5 with the Lisboa Card, free under 6; closed Sundays and holy days, open 09:30–19:00 on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday from May to October and 10:00–18:00 on Wednesday and Saturday, last entry 45 minutes before closing. Forty minutes, then east through Alfama's upper lanes to Campo de Santa Clara.

The white dome of Santa Engrácia, €10 adult, Tuesday to Sunday 10:00–18:00 from April to September and to 17:00 in winter, with the terrace around the dome as the best view of Alfama's roofs; the Pantheon entry ticket fixes the date. On a Monday, or for the tile panels, São Vicente de Fora three minutes away opens daily 10:00–19:00 from June to October at €8, €6 with the Lisboa Card, with its own roof terrace. The Feira da Ladra flea market fills the square on Tuesdays and Saturdays.

Then down through eastern Alfama to Largo do Chafariz de Dentro and Rua dos Remédios for lunch in a taberna; the Alfama guide names them.

Metro one stop from Terreiro do Paço to Cais do Sodré, or the flat 15-minute walk, then the Transtejo ferry to Cacilhas at €1.60 with zapping credit since 16 March 2026, about ten minutes across with the city behind you. From the pier the local bus climbs to the sanctuary; its number and fare are not stated on any official page we could read, so ask at the pier or walk the 30 minutes uphill. The lift at the statue's feet is €10 from age 13, €3 for 8 to 12, free under 8, open 10:00–19:00 from April to September with the last ascent 20 minutes before closing; the ticket includes the chapel.

The terrace has the whole city in one frame, bridge included, and the Ponte 25 de Abril page explains what you are looking along. Back the same way by 17:30.

Across the road from the ferry pier, the old Mercado da Ribeira with 26 restaurant counters and 8 bars, free entry, 10:00 to midnight Sunday to Wednesday and to 02:00 Thursday to Saturday. An early plate if lunch was small; Pink Street behind it for later. Then the metro or the riverside walk back east.

The 50-minute fado show with a glass of wine in a medieval room in Alfama, rated 4.8 by 6,715 travellers, or the Lisboa em Fado show with port at €14; both sell by the sitting and the 19:00 one goes first. Dinner on Rua dos Remédios afterwards, and the Terreiro do Paço metro is a flat 10 minutes with the last train at 01:00. The Baixa district food tour with dinner is the version where the tabernas are chosen for you.

Rossio station's platforms are up the escalators behind the horseshoe doors on Praça Dom Pedro IV; the Sintra line runs every few minutes at this hour, though CP's page states neither the frequency nor the journey time, which most guides put at about 40 minutes. The €2.45 fare is the CP zone-4 figure from a search snippet of the 2026 tariff, not a page we could parse; the €11.40 24-hour ticket that adds CP to Carris and Metro is on the official tariff and covers the whole day. The Lisboa Card covers this train.

The 434 loops from the station through the old town to the Moorish Castle and Pena, 'every 10 minutes' by its own site, which sells a 24-hour hop-on ticket at €13.50, €10.96 online; scotturb.com's line pages returned 404 to us and we could not confirm which company runs the site, so treat the fare as a signpost, not a promise. Get off at the Pena stop and go through the park gate: the walk from the gate to the palace door is about 30 minutes uphill by Parques de Sintra's own reckoning, and the slot clock does not wait for it.

The palace opens at 09:30 and the park at 09:00; the park-and-palace ticket is €45 adult, €20 for 6 to 17s, €35 over 65, €115 for a family, and the park alone is €12. The palace interior needs a date and a time slot, and Parques de Sintra admits nobody after it: no tolerance, no change, no refund, though an online ticket can be rescheduled within a year before the day. Book this before anything else in the three days.

The half-day Sintra tour with the Pena ticket at €80 is the version where the slot is the operator's problem. The terraces and the Arab room take an hour and a quarter; the park paths down to the Valley of the Lakes another half hour if you have it.

Fifteen minutes along the ridge road from Pena's gate, or one stop on the 434. The tenth-century walls run along the crest with the palace above and the town below, €12 adult, €10 for youth and seniors, €33 family, open 09:30–18:00 with last entry at 17:30. An hour on the walls.

Then down: the footpath from the castle to the old town is about 25 minutes and steep, the 434 does it on the ticket.

Lunch in the old town, then one of two. Regaleira, a 15-minute walk west of the centre, is the 1900s estate with the initiation well and the tunnels, €20 adult, €15 for youth and over-65s, €60 for a family of four, free under 5 and over 80, with timed slots that allow an hour's lateness, unlike Pena; a new timetable has applied since 10 August 2026 and the hours were not printed on the page we read, so check regaleira.pt on the morning. Or the Sintra National Palace in the town square, the one with the two white chimneys, €13 adult, €10 youth and senior, €35 family, no slot.

The Sintra day trip page compares both and Monserrate at €12.

Fifteen minutes on foot from the town square to the station, or the 434 again. Back in Baixa by about 17:30, our estimate, in time for the last evening: the pastel de nata baking class runs early evenings for anyone who would rather make the tart than queue for it, and the food and wine walking tour, three hours through the old quarters with tastings, is the dinner that needs no restaurant choice.

Red line to Oriente, then the ten-minute walk through the Expo site to the aquarium on its dock. The Oceanário prices by entry time: €29 adult before 11:30, €27 from 12:00 to 15:30, €25 from 16:00, with children 3 to 12 at €17, €16 and €15 and over-65s at €19, €18 and €17; under-2s free, 5% off online with the code the site prints. Open daily 10:00–20:00 with last entry at 19:00.

The central tank is the reason children stop moving. Two hours. The entrance ticket is the same tiered price with the date fixed; the morning is dearest and emptiest, and the plan chooses empty.

The cable car runs along the river between the Oceanário and the Vasco da Gama tower, twelve minutes each way over the water; the round-trip ticket is €10 as listed and there is no queue to speak of. Lunch on the promenade, where the restaurants face the river rather than a tour bus. The Parque das Nações page has the rest of the Expo site.

Red line back to São Sebastião, and the museum is across the garden on Avenida de Berna. Wednesday to Monday 10:00–18:00 with the ticket office closing at 17:30, closed Tuesdays; free under 18 and free on Sundays from 14:00 according to the museum's own listing, which is the one free Sunday in this guide that still applies to visitors. The adult price sits on a page that refused our fetch, so we print no figure; third-party sites show one, and we do not copy it.

The Founder's Collection was reported reopening in July 2026 after renovation, a claim we could not verify on gulbenkian.pt, so check before you go. The Lalique room and the Egyptian gallery are the two an hour should include, and the garden is free.

Two ways to spend the late afternoon west of the centre. LX Factory under the bridge in Alcântara, the old print works turned into shops, bars and a bookshop, is free to walk into; its official site returned no readable hours to us, so we do not print any. MAAT along the river in Belém, open Wednesday to Monday 10:00–19:00 at €16 for non-residents, with a happy-hour rate of €8 on Thursday and Friday evenings from 19:00 to 21:00, has a roof you walk up and the sunset from it. Tram 15E connects both to the centre.

The last evening eats its way through the old quarters. The food and wine small-group walking tour, three hours with tastings in family-run places, is rated 4.9 by 4,938 travellers and cancels free 24 hours before; the Tastes and Traditions guided food tour at €67 is the alternative sitting. Either replaces dinner, and both end within a flat walk of the Baixa metro stations.