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While Lisbon’s main sights are clustered within easy reach, with seven ludicrous hills to negotiate, attempting to fit in too many on foot, especially in summer, can be a draining experience. A weekend trip will allow plenty of time to take snap shots of the main sights of central Lisbon, the old town, Belém and even Parque das Nações, and still give you time for relaxed close encounters with the Moorish quarters of Alfama and Graça, as well as a muse round the art nouveau coffee shops or designer labels of chi chi Chiado. Bohemian Bairro Alto and the western waterfront can be saved for nocturnal hedonistic pleasures – expanding your repertoire of Portuguese gastro classics, sharpened with punchy caipirinhas. Kick-start the day in Rossio, the city’s downtown centre, with a turbo-charged bica (espresso) and pastel de nata at one of the area’s iconic cafés, like Café Suiça, before strolling down pedestrianized Rua Augusta to Praça do Comercio, where the unofficial tourist Tram 28 departs for a magical helter-skelter ride around the city. Inevitable free-wheeling around Lisbon’s old town begins with the imposing cathedral, culminating at the Castelo de São Jorge, where from its ramparts the city’s past, present and future is revealed. Unhurried wanderings around neighbourhoods of the Alfama, Graça and Santa Cruz, yield earthy charms. Coiling alleyways reveal majestic church towers and pristine domed basilicas erupting into a jumbled skyline and leave time to marvel at the scarlet sunset from the miradouro of Graça. If it is Tuesday or Saturday, have a nose round Feira da Ladra flea market, which you can follow up with a soulful lunch at the Mercado de Santa Clara restaurant. For high art, there is a treasure trove of artefacts at the Museum of Decorative Arts or save your cultural feast for a minimum half-day pilgrimage to Lisbon’s premier site, the awesome Museu Calouste Gulbenkian, 10 minutes by metro from Rossio. It would be a sin to dedicate anything less than one day to Belém, a 25-minute tram ride from Praça do Comercio, steeped in the exoticism and glory of Portugal’s maritime past. The sublime Mosteiro dos Jerónimos is a Manueline confection good enough to eat and a mere stone’s throw from the temple to Lisbon’s divine pastel de nata, the Antiga Pastelaria de Belém. The universal favourite is the Design Museum, saluted as one of the best of its kind in Europe. To leave out heavenly Sintra, Byron’s “glorious Eden”, from any trip to Portugal would be a huge mistake. Here you can visit hysterical Bavarian castles and mystical Moorish palaces, surrounded by jagged peaks, covered in lush greenery and pinnacles rising like fingers, or gorge yourself on queijadas de Sintra and gallop through the mountains on horseback.
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