Lisbon felt familiar and yet so many things I learnt after visiting the city. Before I describe my experience in this fascinating city, I hope you have read about the planning of this Portugal trip and also our experience in Lagos and Faro. I have already described the cultural experiences of Lisbon and now I would like to list the places we found interesting and which could be covered in matter of two days during our stay of Lisbon.

We spent half of the day of our arrival in Lisbon exploring the city ourselves, but the next day, we followed a free walking tour given by a local guide from our hostel. That was a good idea and what we covered is mostly seen in my cultural experiences blog. But, there is so many more places that we managed to visit in those three days of Lisbon, about which I will write in this blog. Third day was also spent in Sintra as well which I have already written in my previous blog.

Monumento aos Restauradores

I don’t suppose this square is a tourist spot but I thought I will mention it anyway as it is from and where everything is connected. I loved walking down the Avenue da Liberade connecting the Marques de Pombal and this square. A monument was erected here commerating the victory of Portuguese Restoration War. For me it was a well connected square, from where I visited the starting point of Gloria funicular, close enough to the Rossio station to catch a train to Sintra which further leads to Praça Dom Pedro IV and Santa Just lift. A very busy traffic square giving access to many shops, mall and restaurants to explore.

Monument of discoveries

One evening we decided to visit Belem and see three places. First of which is monument of Discoveries. It is a 52 meters high monument looking like ship’s prow alongside the Tagus river with statutes of 33 personalities on it. These 33 personalities played a remarkable role during age of discoveries. These names include famous Portuguese navigators, pilot, writers, mathematician and sea captain. It was built to celebrate the 500th death anniversary of Henry the navigator. We spent some time around the area but were late enter the museum present in the structure.

Belem tower

Next we visited Belem Tower. This UNESCO world heritage site is a beautiful place. We reached here quite late in evening after visiting the famous Pasteis de Belem shop. This structure was constructed once upon a time on an island in Tagus river which served as a guidance to the sailors and formed the embankment and disembarking point for sailors. Eventually the river bank was extended. It is a pretty site to visit. We spent about 20 minutes around the area and left back for the city.

Christ the King – Sight seeing

After that we rushed back to Chapel of our lady of peace, just to find it closed. Hence , we just walked around this place to fina a very lonely route from where we could see Christ the King statue. I guess the view from – near the statue is great , but we got a good view of the river in between and the other part of Lisbon. One has to take a special bus to leave one side of the river and cross over the bridge.

Ponte 25de Abril

The bus crosses over the Ponte 25de Abril bridge. While we reached this secluded spot from where we saw the Christ statue , we also got a beautiful sunset view of the bridge. It’s calming to see boats, aeroplanes, and cars driving over the bridge at the same time.

Praça do Comércio and Arco da rua augusta

Observation Deck Park Eduardo VII

Santa Justa Lift

Basilica da Estrela