Lisbon City Guide

(Updated April 2014)

General / Getting Around: The neighborhoods of Lisbon are actually quite small, and close together. It will often be quickest to walk between them, though be forewarned that the streets can be very steep.

We never did have a good breakfast or lunch in Lisbon. I don't know if it's because those are meals that city dwellers eat at home, or if we just had bad luck. We had considerably better luck with dinner and bar-hopping. Note: Acceptance of credit cards was a bit spotty; if that's all you have left on you, ask first.

The neighborhood where we found the best food was Barrio Alto. It did involve navigating around some very small, winding, dimly lit and sometimes deserted back streets. We had dinner in the tiny Restaurante BarAlto and it was lovely. Lots of bars in the area to wander around, after.

Do not miss Tasca da Esquina - a very enthusiastic recommendation here. We learned of the place from the very nice women in the wine tasting room, and in a burst of travel magic, happened to see it from the tram we took right after. We impulsively jumped off the tram and were able to get a table with no reservation. It was so good we went back on our last night, just to be sure we ended on a good note. We got the 7-course tasting each time (€35), which is actually more like 9 courses because the dessert is a sampler of 3 (créme brulée, île flottante and chocolate mousse for us). Absolutely fantastic.

The wine tasting room on the Praça do Comércio and the port tasting room (affiliated) were also fun. The wine tasting was a wee bit expensive, but the single tasting of port gave us a good benchmark, and it was also here that I discovered Portuguese espumante (sparkling wine) which is delicious, cheap, but rarely exported because of low volumes.

The port tasting room can be hard to find, as it's inside a set of old gates, more or less across the little park with the great lookout point. If you're walking uphill and you hit the Independente, you've gone too far. The first day we went, the wine list was a bit more extensive than the second. The decor is fantastic, with a very retro, old school club feel. Closed on Sunday but open to midnight on Sat. (Sorry for the lack of links and names!)

The port tasting room also sold bottles. Unless you absolutely fall in love with a super specific rare thing, though, I'd get my port at the Lisbon airport - the duty-free has a very extensive selection of port, including the exact Dow's vintage I wanted. Saved me from having to check my bag. (Incidentally, transit through Frankfurt was no problem for the carry-on liquids rule. They have some machines that can test the bottles without having to open them.)

For the view, definitely hit Portas do Sol's massive terrace. It's just off the St. Jorge Castle lookout point. (If you're up there, you can't miss it.) They have two giant round cushion things under umbrellas - as soon as I saw it, I wanted to go to there. We managed to score one of the cushion things and spent a supremely enjoyable couple of hours slurping down a huge pitcher of sangria, snoozing, and taking in the stunning, stunning view.