Lisbon, March 2024

A few friends and I decided to go on a short trip in the off-season, and we somehow chose Lisbon (none of us had been there, and we’d heard from several other people that it is a great place to visit). It turns out: it really was a great choice.

I would say that Lisbon is among the top European cities I’ve visited so far. It is generally beautiful, with many highlight spots all over the place. The locals seemed quite relaxed, which is quite a contrast to other parts of Europe, where some hectic energy can definitely be felt. The food is great (with pastel de nata being the main highlight). Street musicians are all around the city, and they are simply amazing; I don’t remember visiting another city that has so many musicians that are also so gifted. This trip was also quite useful for me from an educational point of view; particularly during a guided tour that we had on our second day, I was able to learn quite a few new things, as I unfortunately wasn’t particularly familiar with the history of the city beforehand. We were also quite lucky that, even though we were visiting in mid-March, the weather was great, summery even, with daily temperatures of about 20+C.

The remainder of this post includes photos from various places that we visited during our stay.

Palace of the Marquises of Fronteira

The Fronteira Palace was one of the places we visited during our stay. I found it an interesting concept that the palace is a museum, but the marquise and his family actually live there; I haven’t seen such an arrangement before. The garden was particularly gorgeous, and the very friendly family cat was also around to accompany us at one point. The art inside the house was really nice, with some funny Easter eggs by the artists that the guide pointed out.

Belém

Belém was one of the main recommendations by our tour guide. We didn’t book a guided tour here, so we simply walked around and explored on our own. It was definitely worth visiting; the Monument of the Discoveries and the Belém tower are real highlights (although we didn’t go inside the tower because the queue was simply too long). In any case, if I return to Lisbon at some point, I’ll probably go for a guided tour, as I would like to learn more about the history of the place.

Seaside

As the weather was great during our stay, we also used the opportunity to spend some time on the seaside (in Costa da Caparica). As we were there in the off-season, the beaches were completely empty (with the exception of the occasional person walking around), so we simply walked on the beach. While the place was very nice, I do wonder how lively the atmosphere is during the tourist season; it must be even better then.

Pictures from around Lisbon

Other than the above directed visits, most of our time was spent exploring the city. Our hotel was near near Praça Marquês de Pombal, so many central places were easily reachable. Parque Eduardo VII was also very close by, so we also spent some time enjoying the park. Various photos from around the city (and from the delicious food I had over the days) are found below.