Guide from Lisbon·48 hours
48 Hours in Lisbon Without Once Paying for the Tram
A weekend built on free viewpoints, the cheapest ferry in Europe, and the long walk down from Graça.
The 28 tram is the most photographed thing in this city and the least useful. It costs three euros fifty to board, it is full before it reaches you, and every stop on its route is walkable from another stop on its route. Skip it. The city it climbs through is free.
Saturday
Start at Miradouro da Senhora do Monte, the highest of the viewpoints and the only one that is ever empty. Come down through Graça on foot, not by the stairs the map suggests but the long way along Rua da Voz do Operário, where the tiled facades have not been restored and are better for it. By the time you reach Alfama you will have passed four more viewpoints, none of which charge admission.
Lunch is wherever has a handwritten menu and no English on it. Expect to pay eight euros for more food than you want. Afternoon belongs to the ferry: Cais do Sodré to Cacilhas, about a euro and a half, twenty minutes, and the best view of Lisbon available at any price. Most people photograph the city from a hill. The water is where it actually resolves.
Sunday
Feira da Ladra runs Tuesday and Saturday, so Sunday is for the Gulbenkian, free after two if you have a student card and worth the walk through Avenidas Novas regardless. End at Miradouro de Santa Catarina at dusk with something from the kiosk. You will have covered most of the city, spent under twenty euros, and never once queued for the tram.
1
Miradouro da Graça
Start high and walk down, which is the whole trick to Lisbon on foot. The climb up from Martim Moniz is steep for about ten minutes and then you are looking at the castle, the river, and most of the Alfama at once. Free, and emptiest before nine.
2
Miradouro de Santa Luzia
The second viewpoint is fifteen minutes downhill through the Alfama, and the route matters more than the destination. Tram 28 grinds past every few minutes with a queue of people who paid for the privilege of seeing what you are already walking through.
3
Praça do Comércio
The bottom of the hill, and where the walking pays off. Sit on the steps into the river with everyone else. There is no ticket for this and there never has been.
4
Time Out Market
Lunch, and the one place a budget can quietly go wrong. Order from the counters at the back rather than the names you recognise at the front, and the difference is about eight euros for the same quality.
5
Cacilhas ferry from Cais do Sodré
The cheapest boat in Europe and the best view of Lisbon there is. About one euro thirty each way, ten minutes across, and the return leg at sunset is the photograph everyone else queued an hour for at the castle.
6
LX Factory
Day two, and worth the walk west along the river rather than the bus. A print works turned into bookshops and cheap food under the bridge. Sunday brings a market and roughly triple the people.
7
Torre de Belém
The end of the river walk, about forty minutes on from LX Factory. Skip the queue to go inside, which costs six euros to climb a narrow staircase, and eat a pastel de nata on the grass instead.
7 stops in Lisbon