Places to Explore

• The Alfama

  The Alfama's timeless alleys and squares have a notoriously confusing layout, but the Alfama is relatively compact, and you'll keep circling back to the same buildings and streets. In the Moorish period... (more)

• The Baixa

  The earthquake of 1755, the massive tidal wave, and subsequent fires killed thousands of people and reduced 18th-century Lisbon to rubble. But within a decade frantic rebuilding under the direction of... (more)

• Belém

  Some of Lisbon's grandest monuments and museums are in the district of Belém (Portuguese for Bethlehem), at the city's western edge. It was from here that explorers set out during the period of... (more)

• Chiado and Bairro Alto

  West of the Baixa is the fashionable shopping district of Chiado. A decade after the calamitous 1988 fire destroyed much of the area, an ambitious rebuilding program restored some fin de siècle... (more)

• The Modern City

  The 10 parallel rows of trees along the Avenida da Liberdade, which was laid out in 1879, make Lisbon's downtown axis a pleasant place to linger, despite the traffic. Beyond it is the city's central park... (more)