Lisbon. Last Stop Before Home.

Not Porto. But then, nothing is Porto.

37 Days Across Europe  ·  Days 30–33 of 37  ·  Lisbon, Portugal

There is a particular quality to arriving in a city knowing it is the last one. You are still looking, still noticing, still lifting the camera, but there is something underneath it all that is already turning toward home. Lisbon, as a final chapter, turns out to be exactly the right city for that feeling. It is grand enough to hold your attention, lived-in enough to let you breathe, and self-assured enough that it doesn't need you to fall completely in love with it. Porto had already taken care of that.

Beco das Farinhas, Alfama. One of Lisbon's quieter lanes — terracotta render, wrought-iron lanterns, laundry catching the morning light. The sun came through just as I turned the corner. There was nobody else in the frame. Moments like this are why you wake up early in a new city.

Lisbon is bigger than Porto and more obviously a capital city, it has the broad avenues, the grand plazas, the monuments to empire along the waterfront at Belém. It also has the Alfama, which is the oldest neighbourhood in the city and the one that still feels most like itself: steep, sun-warmed, slightly chaotic, full of fado houses and washing lines and cats sitting on warm stone.

I spent most of my time in the Alfama and the Baixa, which is the right instinct. Lisbon is a city that rewards wandering, much like Porto, but where Porto's lanes feel intimate and accidental, Lisbon's have more theatre to them. The hills are steeper. The views are wider. The sense of scale is different. Both cities are worth your time. Do not let anyone tell you to choose.

The Yellow Trams That Run Through Everything

Tram 12, passing Sé Cathedral. The classic Lisbon composition — and deservedly so. The cathedral's Romanesque tower fills the right edge of the frame, the tram rounds the bend with complete indifference to being photographed. You will spend time working out exactly where to stand. The answer, as with most things in Lisbon, is lower than you think.

Lisbon's historic trams are one of those travel experiences that risk being oversold and still manage to deliver. Line 28 is the famous one, winding through Alfama in a series of corners that seem to defy the physics of the thing. The trams are old. They are not fast. They are, if you catch one going in the right direction at the right time of day, exactly as charming as advertised.

28E to M.Moniz. Head-on on the Alfama slope. The tram takes corners that seem physically impossible. They are not. But it is close.

Hills Tramcar Tour. The heritage tram in red, on the wider streets of the Baixa. More relaxed than Line 28. Still worth it for the view of the city from a moving window.

Line 28, Largo do Chiado. The tram's yellow against the building's deep oxblood red — two colours that have no business looking this good together. The "XVIII" shopfronts behind suggest the building has been here longer than the tram. It has, by some margin.

Belém — Where Portugal Faced the Ocean

Torre de Belém, under restoration. The sixteenth-century tower that guarded the mouth of the Tagus, currently in the middle of a renovation it has probably needed for a while. The scaffolding is honest in the way that scaffolding is honest — it shows you a city that is still being looked after. The reflection in the wet sand at low tide makes the photograph worth it regardless.

Padrão dos Descobrimentos, Belém. The Monument to the Discoveries, built in 1960 to mark five hundred years since the death of Henry the Navigator, stands fifty-two metres high at the edge of the Tagus. Thirty-three figures cascade down its prow — explorers, poets, cartographers, missionaries — all of them facing the ocean they once crossed. Shot from below, into the sun. The only way to read it properly.

Belém is about a twenty-minute tram ride from the Baixa and worth the journey, though be warned: it is also where you will find the original Pastéis de Belém, the famous custard tarts baked to a recipe that has been kept secret since 1837. The queue moves faster than it looks. Order six. You will eat them all before you get back to the tram stop.

Alfama — The Neighbourhood That Lives Out Loud

Largo do Terreiro do Trigo, Alfama. A small square where people sit in the sun and let the afternoon go wherever it wants. The restaurant behind has tables under white umbrellas. The buildings lean together overhead. Nobody here is in a particular hurry, which seems like the correct approach.

The fado staircase. Through a stone arch, a staircase leads upward — a sign points to "Fado di Fado," a figure reads on the steps. Fado, Portugal's melancholy musical soul, lives in exactly these kinds of lanes. You do not find it. It finds you.

Casa de Linhares. A fado restaurant and music house, its entire facade covered in blue and white azulejo tiles, blue door closed against the morning. The oldest fado houses in Lisbon look exactly like this — unremarkable from the outside, and then you are inside and the music starts.

Fado deserves a proper evening, not a rushed tourist set. If you are in Lisbon for more than two nights, book a table at a proper casa de fado, order the bacalhau, and stay for the full performance. The music is about longing, saudade, the Portuguese word for a kind of beautiful, melancholy nostalgia that doesn't quite translate into English. After thirty-odd days of travel, it translates perfectly.

Somewhere in Alfama, mid-morning. A man leans on a first-floor balcony, a girl stands below, a black cat watches from the wall — painted on, but no less watchful for that. A Portuguese flag hangs from the left. This is the Alfama that lives here, not the one that performs for visitors, and the camera caught it by being in the right lane at the right time.

A street shrine in Alfama. A small baroque oratory built into the wall — a painted saint in armour behind glass, flanked by artificial flowers. On the bench beside it, a woman sits with her arms folded, entirely content. This image is, quietly, one of my favourites from the entire trip.

"This is the Alfama that lives here, not the one that performs for visitors. The camera caught it by being in the right lane at the right time."

The Details That Make a City

The City at Full Volume

Rua das Portas de Santo Antão, early evening. The Baixa at its most full — terraces running the length of the street, a staircase climbing the hill behind, the Hotel Americano in the background keeping a quiet eye on things. Lisbon does not do quiet evenings. It does very good loud ones.

Near the Santa Justa Lift, Baixa. An octagonal gap in a wall frames a bronze figure — holding what appears to be an iron — against the neo-Gothic tower of the Santa Justa lift behind. The lift was designed by a student of Gustave Eiffel and connects the Baixa to the Chiado neighbourhood above. Lisbon is full of these layered frames, if you are paying attention.

Line 28, last run of the afternoon. The tram navigates a corner that seems designed specifically to make photographers nervous. The diamond-pattern calçada pavement — the hand-laid Portuguese limestone cobbles that cover the city — fills the foreground. Lisbon's pavements alone are worth the trip.

Fantástico da Sardinha Portuguesa, Rua do Arsenal. A shrine to the tinned sardine — Portugal's most loveable souvenir — dressed up in carnival lights, red velvet curtains, and a carousel in the window. A woman walks past on her phone, unimpressed. The restraint is admirable. I went in and bought sardines.

Practical Notes — Lisbon

• Getting around: The Metro is clean and extensive. Trams are atmospheric but slow, Line 28 is worth doing once; after that, walk or Metro. Lisbon is hillier than it looks on a map.

• Alfama: The oldest neighbourhood; stay for at least a full day. Go early, before the tour groups arrive, and stay for the evening when the fado houses open.

• Fado: Book a proper casa de fado in advance, Casa de Linhares and similar establishments fill quickly. Not cheap, but the experience is the point.

• Belém: A half-day excursion from the city centre, Torre de Belém, the Discoveries Monument, and the Jerónimos Monastery are all within walking distance of each other. Go early.

• Pastéis de Belém: The original custard tart bakery. Queue regardless of length. Order more than you think you need.

• Crowds: Lisbon is busier than Porto, particularly in the Alfama and Belém. Mornings are easier. The city rewards early risers.

• Cost: Comparable to Porto, notably more affordable than Paris or Rome. Excellent value for the quality of food and wine.

• From here: I flew home via London, TAP Portugal operates frequent connections, and London Heathrow is a natural transit point for the end of a European circuit.

Thirty-seven days. seven countries. Switzerland to Italy to France to Portugal to the UK. And now, standing in the departure hall at Humberto Delgado Airport with a bag full of sardine tins and a camera full of photographs I haven't finished going through, I find myself doing the thing that travellers always do at the end of a long trip: thinking about the next one.

The question, as it always is, is whether to go back or go forward. There are cities on this trip I could return to without hesitation, Porto, certainly. Rome, given more time and a better-planned itinerary. Milan. Florence on a morning with no other plans. Or there is the appeal of somewhere entirely new, a different map, a different set of lanes to get lost in.

Thirty-seven days sounds like a long time. It went fast. It always goes fast. And the memories, the grandmother's fish dish in a four-table restaurant in Porto, the shadow of a man walking on golden cobblestones in the first hour of the trip, the view from a Roman rooftop at dusk, the Duomo rising out of Milan's streets, those do not fade the way you fear they might. They settle. They become part of how you understand the world.

My wife is already asking questions. Dates. Destinations. How long. All this whilst standing next to me. Which means the next one has a particular kind of pressure, it needs to be worth it for someone who hasn't already been primed by thirty-seven days of wandering.

Epic, then? Or somewhere familiar, slower, longer? Porto again. Rome with more time. Or somewhere we've never been at all.

We shall see. The planning is already half the pleasure.

Thank you for following along. Every city, every cobblestone, every hill that required an extra gear, I hope it's been worth reading. The full photo edits, Lightroom presets, and practical details for every leg of the trip will be on the blog. More soon.

— after55ed  ·  37 days, 7 countries, one 55+ traveller.