The winter months are a great opportunity to bypass the huge swathes of tourists in major European cities, according to guest blogger Judith Fraser, whose December city break to Lisbon, booked entirely via easyJet, was a surprise birthday present from husband Malcolm.
Their four-day city break was cram-packed with impromptu salsa, pastel de nata, hop on, hop off buses and glasses of port consumed on the sea wall, as well as Michael Bublé and scores of scouts and guides!
Hi Judith, tell us a little bit about yourself…
I’m a 57-year-old civil servant, living in a small village near Oundle, Northamptonshire. I work from home most of the time, interspersed with sessions of galloping around the country to meetings. Working from home is a great luxury and an absolute necessity with the pressures of the pandemic and travel problems but it makes it super-special to be able to get away and see somewhere new. Both myself and my husband, Malcolm, love to travel and he has taken on the role of my personal travel agent since he retired.
When did you go to Lisbon and for how long?
We flew to Lisbon with easyJet from Birmingham on the 16th December 2023 and returned on the 20th December. Flights with easyJet start from £25 each way in the winter months, although a four night stay, including accommodation and flights for two people in January costs £635, booked directly via the easyJet website.
Was it for a special occasion?
I was ploughing my way through the working day at some point in September when my husband dropped a sheet of paper on my computer keyboard and announced: “There’s your birthday present”. Having a birthday just before Christmas is a mixed blessing. It is easy for it to get swallowed up in the festive rush and it’s a long time between presents (a full 11-month present desert!) but it is a great time for a city break and some sightseeing. Everywhere is festive and most tourist attractions are not crowded.
How did you get there?
We booked the flight and hotel with easyJet because we had a good experience with them on a short holiday earlier in the year. That trip had been absolutely as described, the travel was timely and it was not cluttered by unwanted ‘welcome meetings’ or attention from the rep, which made it almost like independent travel.
Our flight to Lisbon was a slightly delayed 7.15am departure and we arrived at Lisbon International airport at 9.45am. The airport is approximately 6km from central Lisbon but there are taxi, metro and bus transfer options. We opted for the bus, which cost us €2 each for a one-way trip to Praça do Marquês de Pombal with a very nice driver who gave us a shout when we got there so we knew where to get off!
We thought our return transfer would be a lot more difficult because the only return flight we could find departed at 6.15am, meaning that we would need to leave our hotel at approximately 4am. This was actually not the problem we anticipated because the hotel booked a taxi for a set price of €22 euros, regardless of the time of day or night. While it was more expensive than our arrival, this prompt and problem-free service left us free to devote our attention to enjoying ourselves.
What made you choose Lisbon as a shortbreak destination?
Lisbon has been on the ‘must see’ list for quite a while and it is just a two-hour flight away. We love city breaks of a few days which we fill with walking miles, museums, markets, art galleries, architecture and sightseeing. They are far from restful, but always lots of fun. I love the unusual and the absurd, taking as much pleasure in street entertainers and just wandering along gazing around as I do in more organised entertainment. I like Christmas markets but this wasn’t the main consideration for choosing this destination. As it happens, there were Christmas markets, roast chestnut sellers and sparkling lights aplenty, which created a lovely festive atmosphere.
Have you ever been to Portugal before?
I’ve been to Madeira and my husband has been golfing and sunning in the Algarve, but we hadn’t seen anything more than this. It was our trip to Madeira which made us want to see more of Portugal.
Where did you stay and what was your accommodation like?
We stayed at the HF Fenix Garden hotel. This is the 3* little brother of the larger and grander HF Fenix Lisboa. We knew we weren’t going to be spending much time there, so we weren’t looking for luxury, but it was spotlessly clean with comfortable modern furniture and fluffy towels. Our room at the front of the hotel had a good view of Edward VII Park but we needed the windows closed at night because there is a lot of traffic noise. I can’t comment on the quality of the catering. We could have pre-booked breakfast for €12 per person, but we decided to follow the receptionist’s recommendation and walk to the other side of the roundabout where there is a branch of A Padaria Portuguesa bakery which sells lovely breakfast pastries with coffee and fresh orange juice for about €3 – 4 per person.
Marques de Pombal roundabout is at the top of Avenida Liberdade, a main thoroughfare lined with designer shops which made for interesting window shopping, although they suited neither my style nor my budget. At the bottom of the hill you get to the smaller, semi pedestrian streets which lead down to the Praca do Comercio and the river front. These are full of shops, restaurants, bakeries (you can get port and pastel de nata at all times of the day and night!), buskers and street entertainers. The return trip up the hill is a 1 – 1 ½ mile hike, but we hired one of the numerous electric tuk-tuks when I was too tired or too full of port to walk.
What did you do while you were there?
There are lots of ways to get around the city including buses, the metro, old fashioned trams near the river, funicular railways and tuk-tuks but we chose the hop-on, hop off bus system which gave us a lighting tour and a chance to look around. It was €30 each for 48 hours, but they helpfully split our 48 hours into two separate days because we had booked a day trip excursion in the middle. There are cheaper ways to get about but it was a great starter in seeing the sights and deciding where you want to get off. That said, if I hear Michael Bublé singing ‘It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas’ one more time, I might scream because it was a relentless feature of the ‘music between information’ playing on the bus headphones.
On the first day, we spent our time wandering around the Christmas markets and through the streets down to the river Tagus, where we watched the sun go down over a plastic glass of port (purchased from a vendor perched on the sea wall with his row of four bottles) while we listed to very good buskers. This became a nightly habit and I would definitely recommend it.
We travelled down to Belem on Sunday, getting off at the Mosteiro dos St Jeronimos to admire the buildings and then wander down through a street market to the river front and the Torre de Belem. Back on the bus to have a look around the quieter Misericordia area.
Monday was devoted to a day trip we booked when we arrived at the hotel. We squished into the front of a minibus (a feat which we perfected over the course of the day, avoiding elbowing each other in the eye, loosing our seatbelts or getting shut in the door) to travel to Cascais, a quaint seaside town much beloved by the gentry of the past. We had a walk around there before heading to Cabo da Roca (the western most point of Europe) to enjoy stunning views to the sound of a very good 12 string guitarist who happened to be busking there.
The next stop was Sintra where we had a couple of hours to look around. We made the effort to walk across the village to the Quinta de Regaleira, a Portmerionesque creation from the 1900s, where the owner had picked up the bits of Manueline architecture he liked best and crammed it into his palace and garden to give a slightly haphazard but pleasing result, which we could have devoted more time to looking around.
Onwards to Pena Palace which was the abandoned monastery redesigned by the German cousin of Prince Albert (husband of Queen Victoria) as a tribute to Portugal when he married their Queen Maria. This day trip cost €130 for two people, our guide was enthusiastic and knowledgeable and it was a good way to cram as much as we could into our visit. If you have more time you can get a train to these locations from Lisbon, where you could spend much more than the hour or so we had without getting bored.
Tuesday was a return to trekking around Lisbon with the Carmo Archaeological museum and a trip up to the Castle of St Jorge. Our hop on, hop off minibus shot through the steep streets of Alfama at a pace which was probably reflective of the driver’s frustration with the usual unremitting traffic. As soon as there was clear tarmac the driver, who my husband christened Mrs Verstappen, had her right foot to the boards giving the feel of a roller coaster ride. We stopped off to browse through the flea market and catch our breath at the National Pantheon on the way back down.
What was the weather like in Lisbon in December?
We were lucky to get four days of beautiful blue skies and 15 degrees centigrade, just getting a little chilly at night. We were told that it is windy for about 300 days of the year out on the coast at Cascais and Cabo da Roca, but we got some of the other 65, where the sea was calm and you could see a pod of dolphins jumping.
Was the city busy?
It was fairly busy, with most people focused on Christmas. This meant that the buses, museums and other sightseeing locations were relatively quiet and we could wander at leisure. We have found that the winter months are a great opportunity to bypass the huge crowds of tourists in places like Rome, Florence and Venice. Lisbon was no different.
We were somewhat bemused by the large numbers of scouts and guides in the city when we arrived. It was helpful to be safely shepherded across the road by the earnest woggle-wearing adults in charge if we happened to be among their charges at a crossing, but we were starting to wonder if we had happened upon a jamboree, having seen at least five different groups within the first half day. A helpful tuk-tuk driver explained that they were all engaged in fund raising at the weekend to go towards a “big trip”, presumably an international gathering. Their singing was very good and I can attest that the scouting movement is alive and well in Portugal.
Was the language a barrier at all?
My Portuguese is confined to a few numbers, ‘please’ and ‘thank you’, so it was a relief to find that most people speak excellent English and were happy to work around our linguistic shortcomings.
Were the people friendly?
They were all so helpful! I’ve never known people so keen to tell you about their city and help you find your way around it. As with all large cities, you need to be mindful of pick pockets but this did not detract from the friendly ambience. We were attentively guided to our desired destinations by some genuinely helpful people, including the guard at a museum who came across the square to show us exactly where we should head to our next destination.
What was the food like and what did you have?
The emphasis of the local food was on fish and seafood, with bacalhau (dried salt cod) and octopus dishes a speciality. We felt we needed to try some of the traditional highlights so we chomped through a pastel de bacalhau (traditional fish cake) washed down with very good port at Casa Portuguesa do Pastel de Bacalhau and grazed on fried sausage and bread from the Christmas markets.
I have a weakness for pastel de nata, but managed to curb my research to just five of these warm custard tarts. I can confirm that the best ones were from Pasteis de Belem and it was nice to munch our way through a couple of them when we happened upon the changing of the guard at the Presidential palace in Belem by chance on Sunday morning. A happy few minutes watching marching bands, soldiers, cavalry and attendant doggy mascots parading down the street.
Where did you eat in Lisbon?
Apart from munching ‘on the hoof’ in Christmas markets and bakeries, we had a nice meal featuring grilled octopus at Solar Do Bacalhau, Rua do Jardom do Regedor for under £90 for two people. On the last night we had as much tapas and sangria as we could manage at Taparia Alto Do Bairro in Travessa das Merces for around £60 for two people. There are numerous cafes and restaurants tucked down the back streets which are moderately priced by UK standards.
Would you recommend Lisbon as a short stay destination?
I would definitely recommend Lisbon as a destination where you can happily fill up to a week.
What’s the architecture/landscape like?
You can’t avoid hearing about the earthquake of 1755 which almost entirely flattened Lisbon. Very few buildings survived so most of Lisbon is more modern than many European cities. A lot of the buildings were rebuilt in the Manueline style to reflect the Portuguese golden age of navigation and discovery in the 15th/16th century. They feature a confection of references to sea travel and plant life which gives them a rather busy ‘birthday cake’ effect, as if someone has had a competition to see how much they can stick onto each arch way!
The romantically restored ruins of the Monastere de Carmo, which house a treasure trove of bits and pieces which were saved from being ‘picked up’ by the waring European armies of the early 19th century, was more elegant.
The tiling on the houses and buildings is stunning. They started putting these on the outside of their house in the mid-19th century to protect them from the weather.
Along with Rome, Sheffield and numerous other cities, Lisbon is said to be built on seven hills. It really is hilly and I would recommend transport to get up the hill through Alfama district to the castle.
What sort of people would the city appeal to?
Lisbon appeals to anyone who wants lots to see. I can’t comment on the nightlife because I was too exhausted for clubbing, although we managed to get swept into some impromptu salsa dancing at a bar on the way back up the Avenida Liberdade one evening. There are lots of open-air eateries and bars, even in the middle of December.
There is ample transport but still a good deal of walking needed to get around. The benefit of my husband being ‘senior’ is the discount he got in almost every location. He took his passport to prove he was entitled to the 30 – 40% off but this was not needed and you will rarely see him happily skipping through entrances commenting “Yes, I’m senior” in the UK.
Would you go again?
In a heartbeat. It’s a wonderful city.
Where next on your travels?
We have a skiing trip to Austria, then some canal boating in the UK to slow down a bit before we are back to Greek Island touring later in the year.
Anything else you’d like to tell us about your trip?
If you haven’t been, you must make the effort to go. There is more to see than you could ever fit into the meagre allowance of one day that seemed to be the lot of the passengers of a cruise ship that docked in the harbour.
Don’t feel you have to organise everything before you leave the UK. It is genuinely an easy city to get around and there was nowhere we found that didn’t feel ‘safe’.
