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City guide · Portugal
Lisbon sits on the northern shore of the Tagus, and it is old enough that most of Europe's capitals are younger: a Roman municipium named Felicitas Julia, then Visigothic, then Moorish, taken by Afonso Henriques in 1147 and made the Portuguese capital in 1255. About 658,236 people live inside the administrative limits as of 2025, with some 3,353,000 in the metropolitan area — near enough 28% of Portugal. West of the city that metro area reaches Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point of continental Europe.
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The Royal Monastery of Santa Maria de Belém, known as the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos because it was built for the Order of Saint Jerome, stands on the Belém waterfront where a hermitage had served departing sailors since the fifteenth century.
Castelo de São Jorge is the fortified citadel on the highest of Lisbon's hills, and it is a defensive system rather than a single building.
The National Pantheon is the Church of Santa Engrácia, a Baroque monument standing on Campo de Santa Clara on a hill in eastern Lisbon, above the Tagus and behind the Alfama.
The Calouste Gulbenkian Museum on Avenida de Berna holds one man's collection, kept together as he assembled it.
The Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga is Portugal's national collection of art made before the twentieth century, and the first thing a visitor planning a trip to Lisbon needs to know about it is that it is shut.
Padrão dos Descobrimentos stands on the Belém waterfront as a 56-metre wedge of concrete and rose-tinted Leiria stone, shaped like a caravel putting out into the Tagus.
The Oceanário de Lisboa is a large public aquarium on the Doca dos Olivais, in the Parque das Nações district on the eastern waterfront of Lisbon.
The National Tile Museum is Portugal's museum of the azulejo, the glazed tile that covers the country's churches, palaces, station halls and ordinary stairwells, and it is installed in a building that is itself part of the exhibit: the former…
Sé de Lisboa is the cathedral of the Portuguese capital and the oldest church in it.
Set your days, your pace and the hours you actually want to be out. The planner works around closing days and travel time, and leaves room to eat.
