LISBON: HOME OF THE WORLD’S BEST CHEESEBURGER
“Well, I’m a nice guy, and I just wanna get high, so how did I end up here?”
After a delightful few days in the beach town of Lagos, Portugal, we caught a train and headed up to Lisbon. Lisbon is the capital of Portugal. It’s been all the rage on Instagram lately, and I was really excited to see this beautiful city with its tiles, hills and charm.
A view through the buildings of the famous Trolley 28 and the sea.
The train ride from Lagos to Lisbon was really easy. There is only one train station in Lagos (easy to find) and trains heading to Lisbon run about every 1/2 hour. The train ride itself took about 2 hours – very painless, except for the fact that the youth in front of us had obviously spent much more time partying in Lagos than showering.
Our Air Bnb in Lisbon was a lovely little studio apartment in the heart of a fun part of town called Baxia. The Baxia neighborhood is close to a lot of great areas to explore, lots of restaurants, boutique stores, and impressive architecture. Our Air Bnb was about 2 blocks from the metro, and 4 blocks from some of the city’s most famous squares. It even had a balcony with great views of the city. Plus, it had its own coffee machine WITH coffee provided!
Here is a list of things worth doing and seeing in Lisbon:
City seal of Lisbon
Overlooking the Alfama district
Discover Walking tour: This is a free walking tour of the historic part of Lisbon. You simply show up at the appointed time and there is a guide with a company t-shirt on. They only ask that you tip the guide after the tour. Our guide was named Francisco and he was awesome. He was a history major at the local university who does these walking tours in his spare time to earn some extra money. Allie and I genuinely enjoyed walking around the historical part of town called the Alfama and learning about Lisbon. Here are some facts that we learned through our walking tour.
Some of the beautiful, old tiled buildings of Alfama
Fact: Lisbon’s city symbol is two ravens on either side of a ship.
Fact: Lisbon was founded 3200 years ago by the Phoenicians.
Fact: A lot of the city of Lisbon was destroyed in an earthquake in 1755, which caused a lot of fires because it started while everyone was at church and knocked over a lot of kerosene lamps. Then a tsunami came later that day and wiped out the lower part of the city. Sheesh!
Fact: Alfama means fountain and there are a lot of beautiful, old, tiled fountains in that part of the city.
National Pantheon: Where the famous Portuguese are buried
Feira da Ladra: Otherwise known as the Saturday Market located in the Alfama on Saturdays. It’s more like a neighborhood garage sale. You could get used clothing, cool old tools and tiles, hot glue guns, baby dolls with or without heads….. It was a smorgasbord, but set in the oldest part of the city under the shade of the Pantheon – a large white edifice where the most important people of Lisbon are supposed to be buried.
Contemplating why I wasn’t born as a princess in this castle
Visit Belem Tower. Belem Tower is an old, beautiful castle that sits on the Tagus river. It looks like it is straight out of fairy tale with the Gothic turrets sitting high above the water. I found myself thinking “Dang, when I used to pretend that I was a princess growing up, I always imagined living in something that looked like this.”
The tower is located a little on the outskirts of the city, but there is an easy metro stop right near it.
Try the Ginjinha: This is an alcoholic drink made from fermented cherry-like berries called ginja. They take these fermented berries and turn them into brandy. We were able to sample some on our free walking tour from a little old lady who makes it daily. It is delicious – and potent – so watch out.
Wander Around: Since we were in a district (Baxia) that was so central to everything, we also just spent time getting lost wandering around the tiled buildings and festive streets of Lisbon. During the day it felt very safe and easy to navigate.
Drinking ginjinha purchased from Tinihha – the lady who makes it every day and sells it out of a window in her house.
Wandering around Lisbon is full of beautiful sites to explore.
Delicious Restaurants in Lisbon:
Trying sardines for the first time.
Lisbon is world-famous for some of its food, and while we didn’t try all of it – we did manage to have the best cheeseburger and the best pastry I’ve ever had. Here’s a list of the restaurants I’d recommend trying:
1: Lautasco: have the full, old-world Lisbon experience by trying some freshly caught and grilled fish. Located in the oldest section of town, this restaurant has outdoor seating and an authentic vibe. Allie ordered sea bass and I ordered Sardines. Both were very fresh with the skin and eyes still on and both were delicious. The sardines were pretty small though, so I had to work pretty hard to get all the meat off the bones.
City views from Park Bar
2. Park Bar : This super hip locale was recommended to us by a girl in Spain who said that it had “great drinks and a cool rooftop terrace.” What she neglected to tell us was how to get there. The cab dropped us off at the address which was 58 Cacalda da Combo but much like Platform 9 3/4, the address in real life did not seem to exist. The numbers on the street went 57 and then 59. Where was 58? Was this actually a door that we muggles could not see?
Thank God for Trip Advisor because we learned that we actually had to go into a parking garage, up an elevator, then up a flight of stairs, past the parked cars in the garage, and magically, like Diagon Alley, a gorgeous plant-filled, Edison bulb-lit bar appeared at the top of the parking garage. It did indeed have delicious drinks and crazy views of the city. Plus the whole super-secret, no signs, etc made us feel really cool for finding it.
3. Time Out Market Food Hall. There are food halls and then there are FOOD HALLS. Lisbon decided to take some of the most famous restaurants in the city and have them set up shop all in one place; serving some of their best-known dishes. There is live music in this space, and it’s really busy no matter what time of day you go. The tables are first come/first served so you may have to hawk around waiting for one to open up.
The best cheeseburger I have ever eaten
There are four spots in Time Out Market that we ate at throughout our time in Lisbon. All were delicious, but I will recommend starting with the best one:
Ground Beef: This place makes the world’s best cheeseburger. Seriously. Those of you who know me well, know that I am a ride or die for In-n-Out Burger. But these cheeseburgers were made with the type of love and attention to detail that are normally reserved for Michelin-star restaurants. The salty beef, cheese and ever-so-lightly toasted bun delivers soooo much goodness.
Cafe de Sao Bento: Specializing in steak and fries that came with a delicious bechemel cheese sauce. The sauce is to die for!
Santini Orange Creamsicle Gelato
Santini – This gelateria is known as one of the city’s best, and it does not disappoint while offering both unique and usual flavors.
Manteigaria – known for making the best Pastels de Nata in the city. We had tried these distinctly Portuguese pastries in Lagos, and they were good, but they were nothing compared with how these tasted! Delicately sweet, with a light crispy crust and a cream filling middle; these babies are the real deal. They are made fresh every few minutes, and I could have eaten about a hundred of them.
Spinach acai bowls from Liquid
4. Liquid: If you find yourself wanting something healthy, check out this delicious juice bar. It has a distinctly hippy/yet very clean and fresh vibe. We had acai bowls and yogurt which were delicious.
Other tips for Lisbon:
Fake drugs: After dark, especially past 11pm, we definitely noticed more rift raft, which kind of caught us off guard because a) we are in a good part of town and b) we’ve been out later than this in Spain and never felt uncomfortable or unsafe. We got offered cocaine by at least 5 different creepy dudes. Our Discover Walks guide had luckily warned us about this ahead of time and said that the Lisbon police can’t arrest them because they are not really selling cocaine but sugar to stupid kids. Anyway, we passed on the sugar cocaine and made it safely back home.
The metro/subway is easy to use: The thing about traveling internationally is, every day is a new opportunity to learn to do something new. This is the part that is both exciting and exhausting about traveling. For example, we tried using the metro a few times in Spain and found that nothing was well-marked and that it was pretty difficult to navigate. However in Portugal, everything is labeled well (like NYC) and it’s pretty easy.
The trolley car rumbling through the streets of Lisbon
Tips on riding the famous Trolley cars: Consistently listed as one of the “things to do in Lisbon,” these famous trolleys (called Tram 28) take you on a charming ride around the hilly city. My advice to anyone who would like to do it is to go early. Our Air bnb was right next to a stop so we thought it’d be easy to jump on. It was probalby around 11am. We quickly abandoned this idea when the lines were longer than the Indiana Jones Ride at Disneyland.
Lisbon’s own version of the Golden Gate bridge – called 25 de Abril Bridge
Get ready to compare Lisbon to San Francisco: Lisbon even has a bridge that looks like the Golden Gate bridge, so combined with the trolleys, tall buildings, easy charm and big hills, the city of Lisbon reminded me a lot of San Fran.
Overall, Lisbon is a beautiful city with amazing food, culture and rich history. It wasn’t my favorite city that we visited; it’s dirtier than I thought, and I felt more unsafe at night than anywhere we had traveled in Spain. All that said, I would happily go back in a heartbeat for another one of those cheeseburgers.
