Sightseeing and beaches in Lisbon

I have never been checked-in so quickly as with TAP at Newark. After a 6 hour flight, I already landed in Lisbon, Portugal. To get from the airport to the City Center, just take the metro and get off at the station closest to your hotel. Ours was near Sao Sebastiao station, right next to a huge mall and good breakfast places. Read on to find out more about the best sights and beaches in Lisbon.

Sightseeing and beaches in Lisbon

Top things to do:

• enjoyed breakfast in one of the street cafés (chocolate croissant and freshly pressed juice and actually all the pastries are amazing)
• eat in restaurants that are filled with locals (even if they don’t look as nice as the touristy places)
• go to the docks in Belem for a happy hour drink and enjoy the atmosphere by the river
• go surfing or swimming at Costa di Capricia (30min by bus from the city center)
• take a picture of the typical yellow cable car and ride with one
• walk around the old town and enjoy the cute laneways and beautiful views from hill to hill

 

Hop on hop off Bus Tour

The most comfortable way to see all the sights of Lisbon is probably the hop on hop of bus. You will see tons of them cruising around the city and therefore, it won’t be hard to find tickets. Unfortunately, we didn’t compare companies before we bought our tickets from Graylines for 18€ for 48h.  It seemed to us that the more colorful Portugal Sightseeing buses were driving more frequently (we always had to wait between 30min and an hour) and the other drivers were friendlier too (once we missed our last bus but thankfully a bus from another company came by a little later and let us ride with them). The pro aspect was that there was wifi on our bus.

First, we rode to Belem. It’s an area with pretty buildings. We took a nice walk along the river which is so big, we thought it was part of the sea.

Everywhere, there are cute restaurants in the alleys and on the squares. When we sat down in restaurants where the Portuguese people ate, we always had the most delicious and really cheap food.

The blue line bus took us to the Orient area which is impressive but not necessarily pretty. It’s a good place to go clothes shopping though. We liked the cute laneways close to the main train station much more.

Of course you can also reach all these places by public transport. The hop on hop of bus was just nice to relax and listen to the explanations on the headphones in between sights.

 

 

Beaches near Lisbon

Since the temperatures were climbing, we attempted to take bus 161 from Plaça España to Costa di Capricia for a beach day. It’s a cute beach town with the typical tourist beach shops and markets. The water was totally clear and there were nice waves. I wished I had a surf board. Even in October it was still hot. We stayed there the whole day and returned at 22.40 with bus 153. Even at that time we were wearing short clothes at 20 degrees

Costa di Capricia is definitely worth a day trip but I heard that there are also other beaches near Lisbon that are worth a visit.

 

Lisbon on foot and by public transport

On our last full day we bought a 24h public transportation ticket.

We walk along the river in the city and then took tram 28 up to the castle where we found more cute laneways and more nice views.

Then, we took the tram back to the other side of the city, where we relaxed for a while in the shade of trees and palm trees. On the way back, the small tram was really crowded and unfortunately, we couldn’t sit anymore. We got off to try one of the historic looking cable cars as well. It brought us down a steep street while children were running along next to it.

With all the exploring we did it was time to enjoy a delicious appetizer consisting of olives, cheese and sangria in another restaurant with view on this pretty city.

 

Unfortunately, on our last evening we made the mistake of letting us drag in from one of the touristy restaurants. The food wasn’t as good as at the other places and had been more expensive too. It’s really worth it to look around a Little and not listen to the guys who want to pull you into their restaurant. Therefore, we decided to go back to the place from our first evening for dessert, where for the second time, we enjoyed perfect food and service and even a free glass of port wine on top.

What is your insider tip for Lisbon? Which Information in this post did you find most useful? Please, leave a comment.

If you need a hotel in Lisbon, check out some places here.