With UNESCO highlights, the ebb and flow of the hills and traditional fado music leaking out of the barrio, it doesn’t take long to fall in love with Lisbon, or to understand its attraction for visitors from around the world. It’s become a big hit with the city break crowd, but dip your toes into Lisbon and you’ll soon discover there’s way more than enough to keep you here for a week and longer. It’s one of Europe’s great capitals.
Embrace the old world
Traditions die hard in Lisbon, as in the rest of Portugal, which is why old buildings are so wonderfully preserved. None more so than Mosteiro dos Jerónimos, the city’s great monastery in the Belém area. This World Heritage site opened at the close of the 15th century, a grand Gothic edifice that once housed monks, before it turned into a school and orphanage. There are tombs of the great and good here, including Vasco da Gama, the famed explorer.
Nearby is the Belém Tower, another UNESCO site, built in 1515 to defend the city. You can climb the narrow stairs of the fortress for sensational views of the city, while there’s history around corner.
The night starts here
Two great neighbourhoods, which sit next to each other, come alive at night. Chiado is a delight to wander around, with its grand, dusty buildings, azulejo tiles and Bertrand bookshop, the oldest in the world and a place of pilgrimage for bibliophiles.
Bairro Alto is a warren of streets that buzz after dark – and are sleepy by day. Leave the car back at your hotel and get here on the Gloria funicular railway (the city of hills has two others), plying its trade since 1885. There are shopping streets, old convents, restaurants and museums, but the area is best known for the unparalleled nightlife. Modern clubs mingle with rough and ready bars that sailors have been spilling out of for generations. You’ll hear the local, traditional and melancholic fado, you’ll hear rock, you’ll hear modern music – just join in the dance.
Plazas and palaces
The maritime history of Lisbon made it a rich place, one where squares were built on a grand scale. Take a guided tour of the Castelo de São Jorge, an 11th-century fort that has been held by Christians, Moors and Visigoths – there are traces of the old 11th-century Moorish settlement here.
Head inside Palácio dos Marqueses de Fronteira – the Fronteira Palace – a 17th-century hunting pavilion that mixes Portuguese style with Renaissance touches and remains a royal building, where the Marquesses still live. There are beautiful landscaped gardens, ponds and, stepping inside, a fountain and elaborate decoration, paintings and antiques.
With many other sublime sights to see in this city, Lisbon car hire is the perfect way to cram them all in.
