Lisbon Attractions

Note: There is very little within walking distance of the docks. Take a taxi or shuttle to the central sightseeing and shopping districts.

Once you get into Lisbon proper, the best thing to do is just walk around, explore, and breathe in the atmosphere. Start your exploration just off the Tagus at the Praça do Comércio (Commerce Square), the gateway to the city. One of the most perfectly planned squares in Europe, it's the site of Portugal's stock exchange and various government ministries. Directly behind is the Baixa shopping district, full of buildings dating to the reconstruction after the 1755 earthquake.

For orientation's sake, here's the rundown of everyplace else: If you head west from Baixa, you'll enter this shopping district, then do some climbing to reach the Bairro Alto (Upper City). East of Baixa is the Alfama, where the warren of narrow streets is home in to stevedores, fishermen, and varinas (fishwives). Overlooking the Alfama is Castelo São Jorge, or St. George's Castle, a Visigoth fortification that was later used by the Romans. Northwest of Baixa are the beautiful Rossio Square (aka Praça de Dom Pedro IV) and Avenida da Liberdade (Avenue of Liberty), Lisbon's main drag. This handsomely laid-out street dates from 1880 and is effectively a long park (about 1.5km/1-mile long), with shade trees, gardens, and center walks for the promenading crowds. Flanking it are fine shops, the headquarters of many major airlines, travel agents, coffeehouses with sidewalk tables, and hotels.

To make the most of your limited time, we suggest heading straight for the Alfama, once the old, aristocratic Moorish section of Lisbon, and now a kind of casbah, with narrow, sometimes stair-step streets running among evocatively decaying old buildings. From the Praça do Comércio, Rua da Alfândega links lower Baixa to the lower part of the Alfama, just to the east. Highlights here include the Miradouro de Santa Luzia, a terrace on the Rua do Limoeiro, by the church of Santa Luzia, from which you can look down over the jumbled district as it seems to tumble into the Tagus, and the Castelo São Jorge (St. George's Castle), a hilltop fortress whose history goes back to the Romans, though most of what you see today dates to the 16th century and later, up to its mid-20th century reconstruction. Great views of the Tagus and the Alfama can be had from its esplanades and ramparts, but they may not be worth the 7€ ($9.25) admission.

In the west of the city (to the left of the cruise docks, when facing inland), the suburb of Belém contains some of the finest monuments in Portugal, several built during the Age of Discovery. This is where Portuguese explorers such as Magellan launched their voyages. Scenically located on the banks of the Tagus at Praca do Imperio, the 16th-century Torre de Belém (Belém Tower) is a monument to Portugal's age of discovery and its famous explorers. One of the finest sights in the city, Mosteiro dos Jerónimos (Jerónimos Monastery), Praca do Imperio, was built in 1502 to commemorate the discoveries of Portuguese navigators. It's a masterpiece of Manueline architecture, combining flamboyant Gothic and Moorish influences with elements of the nascent Renaissance. Admission is 7€ ($9.25).