Lisbon City Guide
+35 addresses (most of which you won't find in the guide books & a newly-launched restaurant, plus a winebar opening soon) to help you make the most of your next trip to the Portuguese capital!
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As those of you who have been following me over on Instagram for a while will know, I was in a relationship with a Portuguese man for nearly 7 years. He’s the reason I packed up my life in London and moved to Paris - the catalyst for so many (wonderful) things that have happened in the last (nearly) 12 years since I left the Big Smoke for the City of Lights. And while our relationship didn’t work out, I have a lot to thank him for. So when I was scanning google maps and chatting with mum about where we should go to celebrate her birthday this year (it has now become a yearly tradition after spending her 70th in Marrakesh last October), Lisbon came to mind.
She’d never been before and although I know Portugal pretty well thanks to my ex (his family live in Porto), I’d only visited the capital briefly about 9 years ago, so I have been wanting to go back. Plus it’s only a two hour flight from Paris, the weather is mild in October and of course it’s beautiful! As I wrote on my Instagram a couple of days ago, the city feels like a lesson in color, pattern, poetry, music, art, and of course history, what with it being the second oldest city in Europe after Athens. I was also keen to see how much it had changed since I visited nearly a decade ago.
One change is that the city now has Uber, which unfortunately I didn’t realize until we got to our hotel. I booked a private transfer with them and paid triple what it would have cost with the app (so be warned). I was also struck by the sheer amount of tourists - the city was heaving! I had bargained on it being busy, as capital cities are, but not quite as full as it was. But I was reminded that Lisbon is a concentrated city, with a similar layout and location to San Francisco, and of course tourists migrate towards the same areas. This made booking restaurants a little difficult and riding the old trams not quite as magical as I’d imagined. We rode them three times and I never did get a seat, with each time feeling a bit like a jerky white-knuckle ride at a theme park, without the seatbelt, especially when standing at the back! But we had a brilliant time mainly eating our way around the city and admiring its architecture, tiles and brightly colored facades. Luckily we did a lot of walking too, to counteract all the eating.
So here’s my guide with everywhere we ate, visited and stayed, as well as my favorite pateis de natas, margarita cocktail, restaurant experience and bookshop, plus travel tips, and lots of bonus addresses that I’ve been to in the past or have been recommended by friends living there, along with a couple of new openings.
In my next newsletter, I’m going to be sharing everything I packed and wore as I actually wore everything! The items created a brilliant capsule wardrobe for five days, so I thought it will be helpful to share them with you.
LISBON CITY GUIDE
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Visit Mosteiro dos Jeronimos - a striking Gothic-style monastery on the outskirts of the city, whose construction began at the very beginning of the 16th century and took a hundred years to complete. The best bit are the beautifully-ornate cloisters built over two levels. The queues are very long in the morning - a two-hour wait, so we bought our tickets around 11am, visited the church next door, which has free access and then went for lunch nearby. We went back to the monastery after 2pm and there was almost no queue. (You can also buy tickets online.)