Travel Guide: Three Days in Lisbon

It’s been a few months since Akshay and I visited Portugal, and I can still confidently say that this country is hands down one of our favorites! I think the people were an absolute treasure, the food was delicious, and the architecture was so bright and colorful (and as many of you know, pretty aesthetics make me happy). I decided to write a quick travel guide on how to spend three days in Lisbon. Our itinerary was a bit choppy since we decided to start and end our trip in Lisbon. However, this guide can be split in any way you would like!

Day 1:

We landed in Lisbon at 10AM after almost twelve hours of travel. Word of advice, try landing in your final destination at night, so you can sleep and start fresh the next day! We got really lucky because Hotel da Baixa, the wonderful hotel we stayed at, let us check in almost 5 hours early free of charge! They also upgraded us to a room with a street view and even sent us a complimentary bottle of champagne! If you ever find yourself in Lisbon, this hotel is worth checking out. The hotel staff were super helpful and gave us so many great recommendations! (Also, this was not a collaboration, just a genuinely good review!)

Even though our day didn’t start till around 2-3pm, I would say it was one of our favorite nights. We were super hungry, so we decided to have an early dinner at this popular ceviche restaurant called A Cevicheria. They’re known for this huge octopus sculpture that hangs from the ceiling as well as the obvious-ceviche! During dinner rush, the wait times can be fairly long. However, we got lucky and only had to wait 15-20 minutes. Also, an added bonus is that you can order drinks while you wait. Not a bad deal at all! Once we were seated, we decided to order the salmon and tuna ceviche as well as a pork belly and shrimp steak sandwich. All were pretty tasty! (Akshay’s note: it was good, but not amazing. I’ve had better ceviche in a few places, namely NYC.)After dinner, we decided to walk around and explore whatever caught our eye. It ended up being a fairly random night, but we enjoyed getting to acquaint ourselves with the city. We ended up finding a dive bar that had live music, an empanada shop that had amazing reviews, and a park with the most amazing city views! Sometimes not having a set plan can leave you with some beautiful memories.

Day 2:

Jet lag forced us to wake up early, which is totally fine because we got to explore so much! We started off the day by walking over to the Caiso do Sodre district. It’s a nice walk next to the water. We had a lunch collaboration with The Wine Cellar, where we enjoyed a nice meal. See my blog post on the Wine Cellar here – highly recommended. An added bonus, is that the famous Pink Street (I’m telling you Portugal is a girl’s dream with all its pinkness!) as well as the Time out Market are five minutes from this location.After lunch, we took a Portuguese version of a tuk tuk (you can see one in the first picture) over to LX Factory, a trendy art district located within an industrial neighborhood. Here you can find the famous library as well as amazing views of the Ponte 25 de Abril bridge. We actually went to a rooftop bar, Rio Marievela, where we ordered a drink and enjoyed the beautiful views.

Since the Belem District was a quick uber ride from the LX Factory area, we decided to explore some more. Here, we saw the famous Belem Tower and then walked about 10 minutes to the main downtown so we could try the delicious custard pastries at the famous Pastæis de Belem. The line looks way more intimidating than it really is, but only took 15 minutes to be seated. I can’t even describe how delicious this pastry was. It’s a combination of flaky and soft, and after you eat one, you want at least 10 more! You have to order it with either a tea or coffee.

We ended our night at a romantic restaurant called Needle in a Haystack. It was about a 15-20 minute walk from our hotel, but totally worth it! We ordered this mushroom dish and both of us were fighting over it (I know a common theme! We don’t know how to share good food!). It is a small, intimate family-run restaurant with bright orange walls that make the ambiance perfect for a date night!

Day 3:

We decided to take a day trip to Sintra, and I am so glad we did! It is so easy to get to Sintra via the train since they leave to/from Lisbon every hour. Once you arrive in Sintra, pay 5 Euros per person and they will drive you up the mountain. Our tuk tuk driver was a sweet, French girl that gave us all these tips and suggestions on what to see and where to go!

Pena Palace is definitely a beautiful site and worth the visit. You can see its colorful reds and yellows as you drive up the mountain as well, so make sure to ask the driver to stop somewhere so you can get some shots. We didn’t pay to go inside, and to be honest with you, I feel I didn’t really miss out. The colors of the palace are really what drew me to it, so that’s what I wanted to see. We spent about 45 minutes to an hour here. 

Quinta da Regaleira is another must see. Honestly, you could spend half a day here and still not cover everything. We took a tuk tuk from Pena Palace to this park (another 5 Euros per person). Akshay was really excited to explore because he had heard so many wonderful things and he is more of an outdoors person. I actually had fun here as well! We spent about 1-2 hours just walking around and discovering all the neat places within the park.

It’s a fairly easy walk back down into town from Quinta da Regaleira, so save your money! We caught an evening train back into Lisbon. Since our flight to Marrakech was very early in the morning, we grabbed a quick bite and then headed back to the hotel.

A few things to note:

• Lisbon is a very hilly city, so be prepared for some uphill battles. Apparently there are “elevators” that take you from one level to the next, but we didn’t get to experience that during our trip.
• Uber rides are really easy to use and not expensive at all!
• We visited during December, so it was cooler. However, I didn’t feel like I needed my winter jacket or anything crazy like that. The uphill walks were probably the reason for that!

As I mentioned, I just loved Lisbon and Porto. See my blog post on Porto here if you’re also planning a visit there! Three days in Lisbon is really not enough, but hopefully this guide will help you make the most of your time!

Tika