Things to see and do in Lisbon

^^^

They're very good

Going a week today for a long weekend, can't wait. What are the nightclubs like? Been reading a few horror stories about doormen and dresss codes...

just booked a four day stay in july (for what will be my first trip out of britain), wahoo. although three of those days i'll be at a conference. unless i decide to just give my paper and then fuck off into the city.

If you want to party, the Bairro Alto area is basically several blocks full of minuscule bars, with people drinking and partying both inside and on the streets. Seedy and a bit touristy maybe, but we had plenty of fun there.

The Sea World was also really cool, especially the penguins and the sharks. (The queues are long though, so if you want to visit you should go there pretty early in the morning.) The old monastery in Belem was worth seeing too, but the fortress at the top of the city was kinda boring, except for the (admittedly beautiful) view... There were other places in Alfama with almost as nice views, though, and you don't have to pay admission.

I'll also second Michael White's recommendation of the Gulbenkian museum; there's loads of cool art ranging from antiquity to the 20th century, and not just paintings, but also furniture, jewelry, mosaics, grandfather clocks, etc.

Lucky you, it's really good. The Oceanario was terrific - I think that's the same thing as the Sea World? But if you only have a short time, probably stick to the old town, eat custard tarts, etc. The view from the castle is super.

Yeah, the Oceanario, that's what I meant, couldn't remember what it was called.

if you want to see tiles, go to the National Tile Museum. After visiting I felt like I never needed to see another tile as long as I live, a feeling which sticks with me to this day.

Lovely place. I haven't been back for a couple of years. We took the train to Belém and went to Casa Pastéis de Belém for the Pastéis de Nata, addictive! If you want to blow the budget then Bica do Sapato for food and then nip to Lux for dancing - that was a great night.

Already mentioned, but: Custard Tarts. Seriously.

Day trip to Sintra. V Pretty.

Indeed, at Casa Pastéis de Belém I was told they made 10,000 a day. Might be a bit of an overstatement.

ooh, thanks everybody. worst case scenario is being stuck giving my paper on the last day of the conference so i have two days worrying / finishing it rather than being able to relax. if that doesn't happen, this all sounds nice.

i'll be there from sunday evening till thursday evening - what's the weekday nightlife like?

Lisbon is the one place in Europe where I have seen men and women in their sixties drinking in bars at 1am on a Monday night.

If you are a carnivore please do not ignore this suggestion: eat at Tomo La Da Ca
Veal cheeks especially recommended
Cosign on Oceanarium, Sintra, Chinese Pavilion. Shows at ZDB. My favourite city ever

Tomo La Da Ca is in my top five restaurants ever, it's a simple take on Portugeuse food by a French chef

when my cypriot friend who arrived in advance is warning me that lisbon is exceptionally hot, i know that i am absolutely fucked. still looking forward to it though!

Loads of shade and little windy streets to walk around though.

such a lovely place, with my single free half day yesterday I just decided to wander with no specific plans, found myself in the Gulbenkian gardens and visited the museum itself before heading south and strolling along the riverside and around the old town, doing basically nothing but nicely so. Though the highlight was the conference afterparty, held at this crazy place http://deleuze2013.fc.ul.pt/camp/venues.php run by one of the keynotes, a bunch of philosophy ppl dancing to a salsa/merengue/etc band until 1am and about a hundred locals, young and old, doing some more traditional/learned dancing outside until well past 2am.

anyone have tips on Porto?

or Lisbon stuff not mentioned upthread/that a gr80 would like

see who's on at Lux Fragil

the Berardo museum of modern & contemporary art (in Belem) is mindblowing, I had to leave and come back to the entire country a week later because I got overloaded

Drink loads of port, obviously. This is tourism 101 but Solar Vinho do Porto is an awesome port bar half way up the cliff with awesome views over the river and a ridiculous selection of port.

Serralves contemporary art museum is great, beautiful gardens around there to chill in if it's hot (which it probably will be).

The Rem Koolhaas music centre is pretty cool, not much around there but it's worth looking at.

There's an area up the top of the hill that's just a mazy rabbit warren of streets full of decent late night bars and clubs.

Eat a francescinha. You'll feel like you're about to die afterwards but they are the most incredible unhealthy food imaginable.

Worth getting the tram down to Foz on the coast, but there's also a decent beach slightly further north that you can get to easily by cab, I forget the name.

oh yeah my suggestions are for Lisbon, not Porto

Lisbon:

Put up with the queue to eat seafood at Ramiro, and do the thing of having the steak sandwich for dessert.

There's a branch of the Solar Vinho do Porto in Lisbon too, up near the Bairro Alto - it's nowhere near as good as the one in Porto but still very pleasant.

Read "The Book of Disquiet" before you go.

got a place in bairro alto for the weekend, will be in porto during the week

also i am a vegetarian travelling with a vegetarian friend fwiw

You should definitely not go to Ramiro!

We enjoyed a newly-opened bar at one end of the Bairro Alto which was called something like Lisbon Pub. It was the only place I found any local-ish small brewery beer.

Pub Lisboeta, that was it. Just a little bar but I liked it, especially the Portuguese porter.

If you want to eat proper vegetarian (not fish) in Lisbon, most of the local restaurants are not good, or at least that was our experience when we were in Lisbon... However we found a couple of really nice veggie restaurants, I'd recommend both of these:

http://www.restaurante-psi.com/
This one was located in the middle a small park in pretty quiet neighbourhood. There's a "proper" restaurant part, but half of the tables are inside a glass gazebo, and I'd definitely recommend that if you want to have a nice, atmospheric dinner in the evening. It's a bit hippieish, if that bothers you. The menu wasn't huge, but we enjoyed the place so much we went there three times. They have some kinda of Indian(?) stuffed crepes which were delightful.

http://www.restauranteterra.pt/English/Welcome.html
This one was a bit less atmospheric than PSI, but the food was really, really good. It's buffet-style, and most of it is vegan, but not "health food" style vegan, there was fat and juices and tastes. Most of the tables were on a terrace walled with trees, so it was a nice place to have dinner too. A bit crowded, at least on the weekends, but definitely one of the best vegetarian buffets I've ever come across.

Thanks for the veg recommendations - anyone know a good hostel in Lisbon?

portugal has most of the best hostels in the world - so you can't go too far wrong with like booking.com

i stayed at alfama patio hostel - it was in a really nice part of the city and everyone there was very friendly. i guess consider whether you actively want to meet people and go on hostel-organised events etc.

if you are solo or looking for privacy, you can get a private room in the hostels for about 40 or 50 euro a night i think. it's very clean and nice and has some good common areas for reading or chatting to people.

apologies if you know the city, but an advice dump:

go to sintra if you can. a short day trip. this is one of the coolest things i've seen on a trip: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinta_da_Regaleira

there are amazing views if you keep walking up hills kind of away from the coast, lots of vantage points and that kind of thing.

good food p much everywhere.

that looks amazing, will definitely go there! I don't know anything abt Lisbon :P

how weird i've just got back from there

we airbnb'd it, lovely apartment in bairro alto for £30 a night

that's very affordable! do you have a link?

I get a feeling Lisbon's kind of.. trending.

possibly trending due to massive recession

i suppose that's when places trend

oh yeah this is cool too if the phrase "chapel made of human bones" is something that piques your interest:

http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/portugals-chapel-bones

xp sadly

I dunno, was just agreeing with a friend that if we could get a week off we'd go south - when picking a destination we thought of Lisbon without thinking twice, I guess it's maybe some kind of collective unconscious that sometimes surfaces in the consumer choices you make. Or coincidence/misinterpretation.

that is a SPOOKY looking chapel!

if you have a week i would probably give porto a go as well. it's a short and pleasant train ride. there's a really good wine tour of the douro valley, from porto, that is quite affordable and idyllic.

hostels really are a major deal in portugal, like if you google best hostels in the world most of the top 10 are lisbon or porto. and not like in a grim way either, these are genuinely really nice. i guess apartments are cheap too tho.

alternatively the very southern tip is interesting in a weird kind of way, there are some strange little islands in the ria formosa near faro - i stayed in a town called olhao about a half hour outside faro. down that way it's very hot and a bit shabby but quite enjoyable nonetheless imo.

maybe avoid faro itself i guess, it seems like sun-seeker destination 101.

another option if you wanted three destinations in a week would be lisbon for a few days, then head to south of portugal - then go from faro to seville.

i forget exactly how long the bus from faro to seville is but i don't remember it being a major trip - maybe 4 or 5 hours. and seville is really great - amazing weather and a brilliant atmosphere.

lots of great advice, much appreciated

i got a very nice & hostel-priced airbnb in Bica - not far from bairro alto , but more quiet- all of the "streets" were footpaths/stairs for several blocks in each direction, it was awesome

co-sign on Porto-- it is crumbling magical beauty

it's been said upthread but if you eat meat and/or drink alcohol, i strongly suggest getting wasted and getting one of these the next morning:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesinha

filth of the highest order.

think you can prob get them in lisbon, to varying degrees, but porto is the original home.

another thing you could do, thinking about it, is lisbon to porto and then somewhere like vigo, would be really easy, no journey there more than two hours. vigo is p cool too, spanish seaside town, very faintly trendy. it has a japanese themed spa hotel which had really cheap offers when i was there, tho it might have just been a lucky deal as it was majorly posh.

aaaaaahhh that sandwich looks insane. i really want to go to portugal.

it is totally crazy. i travelled there for a few weeks hence my contributions here - i arrived in porto really hungover, had a nap in my hostel, then found out what a francesinha was and was eating one like five minutes later. as matt says upthread it's not something you'd want every day, but it actually does taste good.

at the time.

rent scooters and ride them to Cascais, it's the perfect day trip

also i never thanked sic for his Berardo museum recommendation- it is so great & is free

I'll see if we can fit in Porto, sounds pretty good. Scooter ride too. I'm veg but we are certainly getting wasted a day or two and I'll recommend the francesinhas to my friend, hehe.

I didn't realise that beer was an ingredient of a frascesinha. That somehow makes it even more incredible/disgusting.

yeah it's a beer gravy! i think sometimes you get port in the gravy too. why not?

when I was in Lisbon, I went to the Tile Museum which was almost transcendentally boring.

probably an acquired taste

I don't know how many other cities in Europe this is now true of but I find Lisbon pretty disconcerting.. Been here about a month, signs in English are almost everywhere, airbnbs and accomodation in general isn't chap, walking down the street you hear more English than Portuguese and not just in Alfama or Alcantara. After going to a couple of coding meetups I've realized, these aren't tourists, they're expats. I'm in Beato, and first time I went into the local shop, on a seemingly dead street the guy asked if he could help in English

It sort of feels a bit like SF, I feel I could get a job offer just sitting in a cafe with a code editor open

Weather is great (was 66 on Saturday), getting around is easy the sea is a little bracing this time of year

Please go eat at Jesus e Goes if in Lisbon.

I liked Porto as much as Lisbon tbh.

expat in X complains about there being too many expats in X.

I dunno, when I was last in Lisbon I found it pretty Portuguese. Yes there are tourists and expats but no more so than in any other capital city, in fact a bit less so was my impression.

haha:)

Yeah, was curious if it was an outlier or if this is something which is prevalent across European cities (I have read that it is more pronounced in Barcelona, but the tech/startup sector in Lisbon is quite strong and it is a smaller city)

i think the tech stuff is def a factor there

crazy hipstery town too but they carry it well

The thing about expats/tourists is that they tend to hang around fairly well defined areas. Jump on just about any tram/bus, stay on it for a half an hour, get off, and you'll find yourself in a district with little discernible expat influence.

I wouldn't say I'm complaining about it as such, it was just quite disconcerting as I've not experienced it to this level anywhere else - the area I'm in (Beato) is much less touristic. its a double edge sword, and thr ar positives about it too. theres a lot of possibility here, especially if you're in software/web.

When we stayed in an airbnb in Alfama a few years ago our host was telling us about the nightlife and an Alfama nightclub, but she said people mostly stayed on the other side of the town until 2, when they would start to head towards the nightclub. As a tragically unhip 40 something geezer I just stood there baffled, thinking "does she mean... 2am??"

Gonna be in Lisbon for three days this spring, the whole family. Other than a destabilizing global pandemic, anything we should keep in mind and/or specifically seek out? I've never been. We're staying in Chiado, which seems hip/swank.

Some worthwhile touristy things are Pena Palace (in Sintra) and Sao Jorge Castle; take Tram 28 for a city tour.

Museu Berardo - top-notch contemporary art museum. Nearby is Pasteis de Belem, with its beloved custard tarts.
Carmo Convent is near Chiado and worth a quick visit - a church that lost its roof (topless church?) in an earthquake long ago.
Estufa Fria is an indoor botanical garden and a nice escape.
Cemiterio dos Prazeres (cemetery) - mausoleums galore, photo ops for Joy Division bootlegs LPs, if that's your thing (you can board Tram 28 on a nearby stop from here).

The food situation there is amazing (but do a little research), if your family is into that.

Keen to hear more about the dive bar where the estimable Daniel_Rf had his sublime fado experience, plus any other Lisbon recs ahead of a short break in a couple of weeks...

What a beautiful city. Caught a bit of Santo Antonio festival madness and now want to go back every June.

Aw sorry I didn't see that at the time, would have tried to dig up the place!

We didn't catch any fado in the end, but were treated to a busker segueing from RHCP to 4 Non Blondes, so were culturally nourished to complement the many amazing meals we had.