Getting Lost in Lisbon: 4 Days Exploring the City of Seven Hills

Lucky for me, my boyfriend takes me to really cool places for my birthday. This year, I got to welcome 26 in the City of Seven Hills, the Queen of the Sea… Lisbon, Portugal!

Since I grew up in an area with a heavy population of Portuguese immigrants, I was excited to not only be reunited with some absolutely delicious food that I am seriously missing while living in Dublin (I’m looking at you Pastéis de Nata and linguica) but also learn more about the Portuguese culture.

Day 1: Exploring Lisbon

We arrived early and took the metro train into the city centre. It was super easy to figure out and only cost a couple euro.

After checking into our Airbnb, we decided to just wander around the area for a bit to enjoy the beautiful weather before checking out the São Jorge Castle.

We stumbled upon so many great viewpoints of the city, a beautiful church and found some really cool graffiti. We also discovered Ginja, which is a sweet cherry liqueur originally from Lisbon and in my personal opinion best served from a chocolate shot glass.  

When we first went to visit the castle, the lines were OUTRAGEOUS. Luckily, when we checked back in after our walk we were able to walk right in. The São Jorge Castle sits up on a hill overlooking the entire city and also has towers that you can wander through. Before we left, we found a wine vendor called Wine with a View who has a wide variety of wines to choose from and lets you keep a souvenir glass!

Day 2: Wine Tasting Around Portugal

We couldn’t visit Portugal and not try some of their delicious wine! We booked the Arrabida and Sesimbra Wine Tasting Tour through Inside Lisbon.

Our first stop was the Castelo de Palmela which offered up some great views of Lisbon and the Atlantic. To get there, we had to drive over the Vasco da Gama Bridge which is the longest bridge in Europe.

Then, it was time for our first wine tasting stop at one of Portugal’s oldest wineries, Casa Museu Jose Maria da Fonseca. The winery grounds were beautiful and the wine was delicious. But, most importantly... SO CHEAP. I had no idea that you could buy good wine for a few euros in Portugal, so that was a very happy surprise for me. We stocked up on a few bottles, grabbed a treat at a cute café across the street and got back in the van for our next destination.

We crossed through the Arrabida Mountains (absolutely beautiful) until we made it to our lunch stop, Sesimbra. Sesimbra is a small fishing town known for their beaches. We took the recommendation of our tour guide and chose O Golfinho where we both ordered traditional Bacalhau (cod) dishes. We had some spare time to wander around the beaches before it was time to visit the next winery, Quinta do Alcube.

Quinta do Alcube is a family run winery. They also had a farm with horses, goats, ostriches’ rabbits and more. Here, we were able to taste 4 different wines and have basically as much as we wanted to. It was also here that I fell in love with Vinho Verde which translate to Green Wine. Basically, they just harvest the grapes a little earlier than they typically would but it makes for some delicious wine. If I didn’t have the pesky RyanAir weight limit on my suitcase to deal with, I literally would have bought enough bottles of their wine to fill it and bring it back with me. Bonus, it was even cheaper here than at the first winery with most bottles only costing €2-4 per bottle.

It was unfortunately time to head home but we had one last stop at the Cristo Rei Sanctuary to admire the views of the city, the 25 de Abril bridge and of course the Cristo Rei monument.

Day 3: Sintra

After grabbing breakfast at Fabrica de Nata for the second day in a row, we hopped on the train for a day trip to Sintra! Sintra is a small town just about 45 minutes outside of Lisbon City Centre and is filled with palaces, castles and beautiful scenery.

We booked the Castelo dos Mouros and Pena Palace ahead of time to avoid waiting in the lines. I highly recommend doing this specifically for Pena Palace as the lines were very long. We bought all day passes for the local bus and decided to hop off at the Castelo dos Mouros first.

Castelo dos Mouros was by far my favorite part of Sintra. The castle is partially in ruins but most of the towers are still intact and walkable. The castle rests on a hilltop overlooking the country and offers up some great views of the Pena Palace. We arrived fairly early, so we had the place to ourselves to explore for most of our visit.

From there, we decided not to get back on the bus and instead just walk to Pena Palace since it wasn’t that far. I was originally way more excited to visit this palace but I think because of the crowds of tourists some of the magic was lost for me. It’s a beautiful and unique looking palace but we felt rushed from room to room and were on constant alert for pick pocketers who apparently are all over the place in the palace in disguise.  

After our castle and palace visit, we decided to get back on the train into Lisbon so we could make it to the Carmo Convent before it closed. Carmo Convent is a Gothic Church that was destroyed during the 1755 earthquake in Lisbon and was only recently resurrected as a museum holding some relatively random Portuguese artifacts and some very random non-Portuguese artifacts like mummified Peruvian children?

We ended our night with dinner at one of the best places we went in Lisbon, Santa Rita. We ordered SO much food. Fresh bread, fresh olives, cod cakes, octopus, seafood rice, Portuguese sausage and an entire pitcher of Sangria. The best part? All of that only cost us €38!

Day 4: Pastéis de Belém Day!

I can’t believe we made it 3 full days in Lisbon without a visit to the famous Pastéis de Belém but that ended on our last day. We caught the tram over to the Belém to explore that area of the city.

Warning: The tram that runs from city center to Belém is super touristy, super crowded and filled with pickpocketers. Do not wait and buy your ticket on board, find a metro station stop where you can get one ahead of time. Watch all of your stuff carefully, don’t keep anything important in your pockets and don’t stand near the exits. If you can get a seat, take it. We watched one lady go up and down the aisle and through the large crowds of people, placing herself in crowded areas and scanning pockets and bags. It definitely happens, so be aware.

After the very stressful tram ride, we FINALLY got our Pastéis de Belém, which were amazing. Then we stopped by the Jeronimos Monastery to admire the building, but decided not to wait in the very long line to get in since I didn’t book tickets ahead. We also made a pit stop at the Padrão dos Descobrimentos (Monument of the Discoveries).

Our last stop in Belém was Torre de Belém (Belem Tower). This was another long line, but we decided to wait this time. I’m glad we did because the inside of the tower was cool and the top of the tower had some great views but otherwise it didn’t have much going on inside.

Since the tram gave us so much anxiety on the way there and we didn’t have many other plans for the day, we decided to instead take the long walk back to the city and stop for drinks along the way and even a fun market!

For our last dinner in Lisbon, we decided to check-out of the Time Out Market which houses some of the best chefs in the city. I ordered seafood risotto from Marlene Viera and Conner had a traditional Bifana sandwich from a different chef. The food was great, but the market was pretty crowded with people literally fighting for seats. It’s definitely worth strolling through for a snack but the prices were higher than anywhere else we had been and the atmosphere was rough.

It was sad to leave Lisbon the next morning but at least we had a suitcase full of Vinho, Ginja and pastéis de nata to enjoy back in Dublin. Portugal was by far one of my favorite places we’ve visited yet and I can’t wait to get back there to explore some other areas like Porto, Algarve, and the Madeira island