Friday 1st to Monday 4th May 2026
Friday
My sister, Trudi, had suggested a weekend in Lisbon for the first May bank holiday weekend, and I had no problem saying yes. After years of Portugal not figuring at all on my list of places to visit, it has now become one of my favourite places
Unfortunately the flights from Bristol had been rescheduled by Easyjet from a pleasant 7.35am, to 5.35am. We were always going to stay in Bristol the night before but now it almost didn’t seem worth booking a room if we had to be in the airport by 3.30am, but in the end we booked a Nodpod, a new container type development within walking distance of the airport.
Trudi was working in Bristol that evening but I decided to relax and make use of the Nodpod, and catch some sleep. The Nodpods were basic and a bit of a squeeze for two of us with minimal luggage, but well thought out, with all modern requirements including a decent shower, although the internet dropped out every time a plane flew over!
It was surreal to see the airport so full at 4am, including some very loud hen parties. We also found out that there were several travelling from our home town of Launceston to a hyrox event taking place in Lisbon that weekend
Lisbon airport was chaotic, and we were basically waved through passport control without doing any of the EES procedures we understood were supposed to be mandatory. The queue for those trying to depart from the airport was horrific, however, and we hoped this was not going to be our experience on the Monday when we fly home again
Our planned transfer driver took us to our hotel, an Ibis, and we were really grateful to find out that our room was ready, as Trudi was really struggling from lack of sleep. She had planned to sleep on the plane but in the end had only napped. She decided to have a nap in the room whilst I went out and started exploring
Parque Eduardo VII was not too far from the hotel, and proved to have great views down the hill and across the city to the River Tagus. There were a lot of dogs being walked through the gardens below, and people enjoying the sunshine
Walking down the beautifully paved, tree lined avenue towards the town, I found the botanical gardens within the park which I had hoped to visit. Unfortunately 1 May is a bank holiday in Portugal and some attractions and shops were not open, and this included the botanical gardens, so I had to satisfy myself with looking at the lake and resident peacocks
The Pavilhao Carlos Lopes on the opposite side of the park had impressive blue tiles on its frontage.
At the bottom of the park a large statue sits within a roundabout, celebrating the life of the Marques de Pombal, who was responsible for rebuilding the city after the earthquake of 1755. The roundabout was supposedly one of the busiest in the city, but it was closed off that morning, presumably for an event, although I am not sure what
After buying some water I headed back to the hotel to change into shorts once Trudi was awake, and then we headed back to a restaurant I had seen which looked promising – we were not disappointed. Honest Greens served lovely fresh food with plenty of salad, chicken for me; salmon for Tru. Even the toilets were impressive, continuing the rustic vibe
We had booked on to the Hop on Hop off yellow buses, which sounded like a good way to spend the day when we were still tired. The first ‘Modern’ tour took us to the east of the city, the second ‘Belem’ tour to the west.
We were so tired we both nodded off at odd times, but it was good to get a feel for our way around the outskirts of the city a bit. Whilst the sun was shining some of the time it was really windy on the open top buses and we definitely felt a bit wind swept
Beteeen the tours we stopped at a cafe to get a drink and stumbled across one making and selling the best Pastel de Nata, which went down very well with a cup of tea. The place was packed and chaotic with a queue lout of the door, but we could watch the pastries being made, and they were still warm when we ate them – delicious
We felt like we had had a good taster of Lisbon in a busy day after not having slept much the day before, and we headed back to the hotel to get something else to eat before trying to get a better night’s sleep
Saturday
After a surprisingly comprehensive buffet breakfast at the Ibis, we headed out to find the western end of Tram 28, which is apparently a famous tram route through Lisbon. After some dodgy navigating thanks to google maps, we eventually found the terminus after navigating some quirky streets on the way
Unfortunately there was a sign stating that the tram wasn’t running for the whole of its length and we would need to catch a designated bus that would run the same route as the tram does, and connect. At the same it started to rain whilst we were waiting for the bus driver to finish his break, but we got a seat despite the rather pushy other passengers ensuring they weren’t going to miss out. The tram is very popular and renowned for being overcrowded, and we definitely saw evidence of this later in the day, with only those in seats able to really see out of the windows.
When we got to the place where the trams were running there were long queues and we decided to give the experience a miss – we thought it was better to look at the trams from the outside than try to travel like sardines inside. Apparently the trams go down some very narrow streets and are very close to the buildings so that would have been interesting if we would have been able to see out. We did get to see the driver of one tram get out to pull on the string at the back to reconnect to the wire above, as it had become unfixed and was instead sparking on other wires
We later saw quite a few trams, including very modern ones, and tour trams which were red. We hadn’t seen any the day before – either we were in a different area where they didn’t run or, more likely we think, they hadn’t run on the bank holiday
Having decided to give the tram a miss we headed down the street towards the river and on to the Time Out market. The market is a huge under cover area with long tables and benches surrounded by various food stalls – we decided to test whether the Pastel de Nata here were as good as those we had had the day before. I don’t think they were quite as good, but still an awesome snack with a morning coffee
The food area is further surrounded by market stalls selling fresh fruit and veg, fish, meats etc
We wandered east, past big impressive squares and historic buildings until we came upon a Praca do Comercio – another huge square with restaurants along one side, the river at the front and an impressive ‘Arco Triunfal da Rua Augusta’ – an arch that had taken a whole century to receive its final design
Trudi spotted people at the top of the arch, so we paid our 5 euros and caught the lift and then walked up 72 steps to the top and admired the view
Walking up from the square to Rossio we passed the Elevador de Santa Justa, a 19th Century lift which can transport passengers up 7 stories to avoid them having to walk up steep hills to reach the same location
Unfortunately the lift is temporarily closed currently, alongside the 3 funiculars which can be found in the city. The closure was ordered after the fatal accident in September 2025 when 16 people died and others were injured on one of the funiculars, amid fears of maintenance failings on these historic structures
The Purple Lady standing on the lift structure is said to have been created by Superlinox, the ‘Portugese Banksy’ and is often displayed around the lift
Having seen the colourful buildings in the Moorish sector we made our way towards where we thought they were, but the area didn’t feel particularly safe so we ended up walking back down to the waterfront area
Our Pastel de Nata with morning coffee were no longer keeping us sustained so we had lunch at a restaurant back in Praca do Comercio – Tru had Octopus and I had cod, both with the same accompaniments which included quite a lot of oil
Making for the Cathedral Se de Lisbon we wandered along, admiring the different buildings along the way
The Cathedral itself had a Treasury area with obviously valuable exhibits including a lot of cloaks and other ceremonial clothing, as well as a ‘monstrance’ covered in jewels
The balcony looking out over the streets below was very narrow and required some manoeuvring with other visitors
Portugal is famous for its Fado, a particular type of singing, so we had booked to go to a tourist performance in a nearby cellar, surrounded by 11th Century walls. As part of the visit we had a glass of Port wine which went down very well
Whilst I didn’t much like the singing I had to admire the Portugese guitar playing which was incredible
The next area we wanted to visit was Alfama, the old town of Lisbon. We had envisaged an area like the old town in Nice, but as with a lot of Lisbon it was not as expected and had some quite random areas and sights. some of it was quite run down, with rubbish and weeds etc, but other parts were popular and busy
We saw an old lady with a stall set up in her doorway, selling small bottles of Ginja for sale. Another was selling it from the bottom of the steps leading up to her apartment. We were fascinated but didn’t engage as we didn’t know what it was, but a little later a visitor told us it was delicious, and said he would buy us a sample as it was his birthday. Trudi insisted on paying the 1.50 euros each, because it was his birthday. Ginja turned out to be a cherry liqueur, originating in Lisbon, that is served in small chocolate cups. You sip once, then again, and then pop the whole chocolate cup and remaining liqueur into your mouth in one go – it was very good!
Heading back down to the River we saw a large group of young people apparently performing some sort of activity by the River. They reminded me of Harry Potter in their long black cloaks. Google told us this was a popular academic tradition, with the university students performing initiation ceremonies, or in May the ‘Burning of the Ribbons’, a week long celebration marking the end of the academic year
By now we were exhausted and thought to walk back to catch an open top bus back to our hotel, until we realised they had already stopped for the day. We instead caught the metro to navigate most of the way, which was unremarkable but did the job!
Sunday
Having had a busy couple of days in the city we decided to join a tour to some places of interest in the surrounding area. After an early breakfast at 6.30am we walked to the pick up point in the sun. There was a little confusion because of the sheer numbers of people joining different tours but we were soon on our way, albeit with Tru and I sitting at different ends of the bus because it was full from an earlier pick up.
Our guide turned out to have a sense of humour and a tendency to joke, so we were wary of some of his stories – Google is a great friend at these times! On the way out of Lisbon we passed under the Aqueduct which we had seen previously, built in the 18th Century to bring water to Lisbon from Sintra, an amazing piece of engineering
Our guide talked about someone killing over 70 people by throwing them over the side of the Aqueduct, which led to the closure of any pedestrian access. This sounded a bit unlikely, especially as I thought he said it was in the 1950’s, and that his head had been severed and retained after his death for medical examination. Google told me that there was an element of truth, however, although the murders were supposed to have occurred between 1836 and 1839. Apparently Diogo Alves disguised the robbery of farmers and commuters by making it look like they had committed suicide. The deaths were not investigated initially, and even when the criminal was captured and punished for the robbery of a doctor there was no real evidence of the crimes involving the Aqueduct. His head was supposedly retained, however, preserved in formaldehyde – there is certainly a head on display at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Lisbon which may have been Diogo’s…
Our first stop on the tour was a coastal town of Cascais. This was a small fishing village until families with money hid there during the Second World War, when Portugal attempted to retain its neutral position. These families brought money and wealth, and set up businesses, and the area is now very expensive, alongside the neighbouring town of Estoril. Apparently many spies were also in the area during the War, and Estoril has the biggest casino in Europe – Ian Fleming had the idea for his 007 spy whilst living in the area and meeting and mixing with the other residents.
Cascais made a lovely setting for a morning cup of coffee and a pastel de nata, sitting in the sun outside a cafe, thinking of the rest of the family back in the Uk in the rain on a typical UK bank holiday weekend
I had stayed at Cascais some years before, whilst attending a conference. The only thing I remember from that weekend was hiring a bike on a spare day before flying home, and using the bike path to ride north alongside the Atlantic. I stopped then to spend time sitting in the sand admiring the surfers and windsurfers, and we passed the same beach on this tour. Apparently this is a training beach for amateurs who would like to progress to the much bigger waves at Nazare, the famous surfing beach further up the coast.
We were aiming for the headland known as Cabo da Roca which represents the most westerly point of Europe, the ‘End of the World’. I had been told this before, I thought, when I visited an entirely different headland further south, in January 2025! After again reverting to Google I discovered that the more remote area I went to in January was the most southwestern point of Europe, called Cabo de Sao Vicente – I had obviously misunderstood when writing my blog around that visit, and picked up the wrong name – I will have to add an edit to that earlier blog!
The road out to the headland, and then back again, seemed to be a favourite route for cyclists. Our coach driver had been trying to pass them one at a time, but a sunny Sunday meant there were too many to pass. There were GNR officers (military personnel charged with traffic control as well as other roles) keeping an eye, and they were very interested when the coach just stopped in the middle of the road at one point, suffering a mechanical – luckily we got going again and didn’t have any further issues
Sintra was exceptionally busy, with traffic and people everywhere, but was a really interesting old town.
Our guide suggested a restaurant selling a buffet lunch for 16 euros each, which seemed exceptional value as it included as many visits as you wanted to a varied buffet and a variety of salads, and dessert, with a drink included. It was also very quick as we weren’t waiting for service, handy when we had limited time
For those of us who had booked entry to Quinta da Regaleira we followed our guide walking up a relatively steep slope to the house and garden. The house looked quirky but the real story is in the garden, which is full of interesting structures.
The estate was acquired from Viscountess of Regaleira towards the end of the 19th Century by Carvalho Monteiro, a man of mixed Brazilian and Portuguese origin. According to our guide, Carvalho Monteiro had apparently made millions bringing in shipments of black pepper and coffee, selling at privileged prices thanks to the patronage of the owners of the port, who prevented others bringing in the same goods until some time later by which time the quality would have deteriorated. The area housed many noble families, all enjoying favours from King Carlos I and avoiding taxes, (which probably led to the King’s eventual assassination in 1908).
Carvalho Monteiro and his architect Luigi Manini set about building the house and folly filled garden
Through a gap in the planting we were led up a path and over a bridge , all built using imported stone
There is a large well above this area, with nine levels, known as the Initiation Well. It is believed that the well was used for Initiation ceremonies, probably because of Carvalho Monteiro’s interest in Free Masonry. The nine levels are said to represent the nine circles of Hell, the nine divisions of Purgatory, and the nine skies that make up Paradise in Dante’s poem, “Divine Comedy,” written in the 14th century
We walked down the spiral staircase, which got wetter and darker as we went down. Our guide said those completing the initiation had to descend blindfolded and with their hands tied behind their back but I cannot find any support for this theory on Google.
The floor at the bottom has a mosaic bearing the Knights Templar Cross, and from here there were various underground tunnels with openings to the lake and the waterfall we had crossed, and eventually an exit
Back out in the garden there is an area with seating around a table, opposite a fountain, which was apparently used for sacrificial ceremonies, probably as part of the Free Mason activities – nobody knows for sure what went on or what was actually sacrificed.
There is a chapel near the house which our guide claimed was merely for show, and never used. He believes the Masonic symbol above the entrance to the chapel proves his point
The guide was trying to keep to the allotted time for the tour, but this left only a short window to look around the house.
Tru and I followed the trail through the rooms, admiring quickly the wooden ceilings and mosaic floors in particular, but it was a whistle stop tour
At the exit we had a last look across the gardens, which I believe were the most interesting part of the property, so I am glad we had concentrated our time there
Our final stop was to be Pena Palace, a most commanding property painted in red and yellow sitting on the top of a hill. The winding road up to the palace is best travelled by vehicle and I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to walk it. There were ‘palaces’ in the woods each side of the road and our guide said these were still owned by Portuguese and Brazilian nobility and private.
The administration of the tour got very confusing, as some of us on the coach had paid to go in the palace, whilst others had paid only to look at the large gardens. Others had only paid for transport to the site and had to pay for their own tickets if they wanted to visit either the palace or the gardens. It was all a muddle, with the guide struggling to pronounce the names being called out, and it appeared that one passenger was missing. Our guide talked about having to return to Sintra to find her, once he had got us into the relevant attractions, even though we were all adamant that nobody had sat next to an empty seat on the coach. For whatever reason the ‘missing’ passenger materialised before we left the site so all was good in the end, and we never really found out what had happened!
As it turned out the inside of the palace was not as interesting as the outside so it didn’t take us long to walk through the various rooms open to visitors. Apparently the number of rooms available for the tour was much reduced from 1 April, 2026, and external guides are no longer allowed access to talk about the exhibits.
The Palace was built on the grounds of an old monastery which had been severely impacted by the earthquake of 1755. Ferdinand II, king consort as a result of his marriage to Queen Maria II, decided to buy the land and build a palace suitable for use by the Royal family as a summer residence. The palace was largely completed by 1847, with the older parts built where the monastery had been painted red, the new palace yellow
The outside spaces were the most interesting, including balconies and a wall walk, which enabled us to look back at the building itself. Unfortunately it was impossible to get a photo of the whole which had so attracted us in the first place, as its position means that a full view is only really possible from a drone
The chapel had stained glass windows which looked almost too modern to be real
The whole Palace felt a little like a set up for the tourist experience, and not quite as we had expected. The overhead picture of the Palace on the top of a hill, with its romantic turrets and unusual colouring had led us to expect more somehow, but it was still an interesting visit.
The background story of the Portuguese Royal Family which I read up on afterwards seemed to be your typical story of succession issues and backstabbing as evidenced in royal families everywhere at this time, including England and Scotland as I had discovered in my visit to Scotland.
In 1807 Napoleon invaded Portugal, and the then Regent, Joao VI fled to Brasil and became King of the United Kingdom of Brasil, Portugal and the Algarves. Joao returned to Portugal in 1821, leaving his son Pedro to govern Brasil. Pedro and his brother Miguel fought over who was to succeed their father in Portugal, with Pedro winning to secure the throne for his daughter Maria II, who was only age 7 at the time
To compensate Miguel for losing his right to the throne he was promised to Maria II as her future husband. To this end he was some time later appointed as Regent whilst Maria was growing up, but then claimed the throne as his own, and ruled for 6 years. Maria II eventually regained the crown and ruled until her death in 1853.
Ferdinand II married Maria II in 1837, and became the King Consort until Maria II’s death, which occurred as she was giving birth to her 11th child. Peter V, the son of Ferdinand and Maria succeeded the throne next, followed by his brother Luis I.
Carlos I was the son of Luis I, and reigned from 1889 to 1908, when he was assassinated. His eldest son was also mortally wounded in the same shooting, so the younger son, Manuel II, became King. Manuel II only reigned for a couple of years as the monarchy was overthrown in the 1910 revolution, and Portugal is now a republic.
Pena Palace was inherited by Ferdinand II’s second wife, Countess of Edla, Elisa Hensler, an opera singer, on his death. She had a chalet built in the garden which our guide said she lived in because the Royal family wanted her out of the Palace, but Google suggests that she sold the palace back to King Luis I and went to live with her daughter
After the Revolution of 1910 the Palace was classified as a national monument owned by the state, although Queen Amelia (widow of Carlos I) was allowed to spend her last night in Portugal there before leaving the country and living mainly in France
Our guide led us down through the gardens to the lakes, before we got back into the coach and made our way back to the city
Exhausted we ate again at the Ibis hotel and had a beer – we had found the location of the Ibis worked well for us, and it was nice to end up there at the end of each day for a simple meal and a beer before bed
Monday
Worried about the possible queues at the airport because of the new EES system, we decided to cancel the planned transfer car and make our way to the airport by metro. Although the flight was not due to leave until 6pm we felt a relaxing day travelling was called for, and we didn’t feel there was anything else in particular we desperately wanted to see
The metro surprised us with the cost (1.90 euros) and ease from the metro station closest to our hotel, and realised if we were to re-visit the city again we would now have the confidence to make our own way. We made good time, and enjoyed a last coffee in the sun before entering the airport itself.
As it turned out the gates are only announced 2 hours before the flight time so we only cleared security before relaxing and getting lunch. Once the gate was announced we then had to join the queue to get through to the N section (north?). We had 2 hours to get through and made it ok, but there were desperate passengers who hadn’t allowed enough time, trying to jump the queue to get on earlier flights. For some reason all the brand new machines were standing idly to one side, and we had to just show our passport to a very bored looking border guard. It seemed chaotic and pretty pointless, but we got on our flight and that was the main thing
On the flight out we managed to see the second bridge linking Lisbon to the other side of the River Tagus, the Vasco de Gama bridge. This is the second longest bridge in Europe, according to Google, opened in 1998
All in all a very enjoyable weekend. It was also quite tiring – apparently we walked over 6.5 miles on the Friday, nearly 11 on the Saturday, over 7.5 on the Sunday and 3 on Monday – 28 miles altogether! Certainly not a relaxing beach holiday…perhaps I need one of those next!