Lisbon

Does anyone know of a car rental in Lisbon that accepts visa debit?

Just back from 6 days in Lisbon, overall it was very nice, here are some tips from our experience.

Transport
we flew to Lisbon with Ryanair for €50 each way. The airport is in the north of
the city and has metro and bus links direct to the city centre.

Make sure you get the Lisbon Card, this is €39 for a three day pass that gives
you all metro, public bus, train and tram services in the city. It will save you
loads of time, hassle and money. It also comes with a booklet full of the many attractions,
museums, and tours you can do in the city many offering a discount when you show
your Lisbon Card. There are also a few tear out pages of vouchers for city tours operated
by private companies.

You can get this at the tourist kiosk in the Airport or in the tourist information shops in the city.


The City
Lisbon is full of very old architecture and buildings that are very interesting to look at
on a bus tour, and there are lots of museums and attractions, but overall Lisbon is a poor city.
Large sections of the city are derelict and falling to bits. It says something about the Portuguese
economy when there are loads of old men shining shoes in the streets outside banks. I got the
sense of the middle ground has been cut out of Lisbon - there are the tourists and some wealthy locals,
but most of the people are poor and just scratching a living.

There are virtually no convenience stores or handy little supermarkets anywhere.
We found that it was impossible to "pop to the shops for a few things" really anywhere in
the city.

We only found two shopping centers - "El Cotre Ingles" and "Campo Pequeno". Stock up in
the supermarkets in one of these places and pack your bag with supplies before you head out
each day.

Essentials like water, fruit and snacks are much cheaper than in Ireland, but as I said, there
just aren't any shops in large areas of the city. For example we only found one small coffee
shop in the whole area around the National Parliament. You can wander through entire districts
and not see a single open shop.

There are some more successful areas like Baxia-Chiao but these are surrounded by empty shops
and decrepit old buildings. The nice areas of the city feel like islands of economic success in a
sea of failed businesses, it's quite sad actually. A good proportion of the shops look like they
were 30 years ago and still selling the same stock they did then.

The centre of the city is the area around the Rua Augusta Arch. There are lots of shops and
restaurants and tours all pass through this area. This is a nice area that goes up into the
Baxia-Chaio area this is - the main tourist area of the city.


The People
Most of the people you will have contact with are the usual "service robots" you find in
any tourist dependent city. They seemed friendly enough and most people under 50 speak
some English.

The Irish charm really does work wonders and if you try speak a few words of broken Portuguese
you'll be appreciated even more. Manners and patience are also very handy.


Safety
The usual rules about watching your belongings on public transport apply of course.

I felt safe in Lisbon overall, but there are a lot of beggars in the tourist areas. After dark all
these street performers come out. There must be some law in Portugal that if you make some
crap jewellery or do juggling you can bug people for money.

Scumbags offering drugs and the usual annoying street sellers are abundant day and night also.

The police are all armed, but seem more interested in standing around smoking, chatting and watching
the world go by. To be honest, a lot of them looked like garage mechanics with handguns.

On reflection, I would say that I felt about as safe in Lisbon at night as you do in Dublin city centre after
dark - you should be alright, but don't hang around the streets if you can avoid it.


Hotel
We stayed in the Hotel Alif in Campo Pequeno. It was a nice basic hotel with clean
rooms - no complaints about hotel at all really. It was total luck that we picked
this one, it turns out that Campo Pequeno is a big concert arena set in an old
bullfighting ring. It has a big shopping center underground with loads of shops and a
full supermarket. It also has a great cinema that showed English speaking films.
In Portugal, most Hollywood films are shown in English with Portuguese subtitles apparently.

And to top if off, the metro station connects via an underground walking tunnel to the
shopping complex. If I ever go back to Lisbon, I'll definitely stay in this area again.

Tours / Attractions
We did three tours - two bus tours - the red line and blue lines, and a the green line tram tour.
The bus tours we did were with the company "City Sightseeing". I have been on their
tour buses in other cities without complaint, but this time was disappointed - the commentary
was crap - very little info only a couple of sentences about the major attractions and a lot of depressing
Fado music played between the stops. This is a famous kind of traditional music
from Lisbon, it's nice in small doses or sung by someone who has talent, but on the bus it really got annoying
after a while. Half the earphone stations on the buses didn't work either.

http://www.city-sightseeing.com/tours/portugal/lisbon.htm

I'd try the "Yellow Line" company to see if their commentary is any different.
Mind you they operated the green tram line and it was the same stuff on the commentary.

http://www.yellowbustours.com/en/cities/lisbon/


We did a few of the main sites, getting a discount with the Lisbon Card to most of them.

Gulbenkian Museum - A great compact museum with a bit of everything Greek, Roman,
Far-East and Renaissance stuff. The Lalique glass and jewellery collection is stunning.

Jeronium Monsatrary - free in - you can go around the Church and see the tomb of Vasco
de Gama - remember his name from school history books?

Museum of Design and Fashion - Free in - Nice collection of furniture produced under the
Salazar regime. This was the only place in Lisbon that even acknowledged this time period in
Portugal's history - it is really telling that the city does not want to talk about the "bad old days"
where tourists are concerned. Not like in Berlin, where they acknowledge their troubled past with
dignity and are able to move forward.

Military Museum - A nice little museum, showing the colonial might of Portugal when the ruled
half the world at the end of a siege cannon.

St Georges Castle - Nice with great views of the city.

Santa Justa Lift - free with the Lisbon Card - great views of the city.

Berardo Collection Museum - Great modern art museum down in Belem.
Loads of great pieces from all the major schools of 20th century art.
Everything from Mondrian to Andy Warhol and more modern pieces from
contemporary artists. Free entry as well.

Lots of attractions have a discount for over 65s, which was a nice surprise.


Sintra
We took a day trip to Sintra. This is a lovely village outside the city towards the coast
that the Portuguese Royal Family used as a holiday home. There are palaces and stately
homes all around this lovely area. We went to the Pena palace. It was €14 in and as
soon as you get in the gate you have to pay another €3 for the transfer bus. This takes you
to the palace up the top of a massive hill that's probably give Usain Bolt a heart attack if he
tried to walk it, so you're kind of compelled to get the transfer bus.

The palace itself is fabulous you get to walk through all the rooms with all the royal family's
furniture and possessions laid out as if they were still present. If you like Downtown Abbey or
the finer things in life, you'll love this tour.

It is worth going to Sintra but you will feel ripped-off afterwards.

Once consolation about Sintra was the Anjos Teixeira Museum. This is a small house
filled with great sculpture created by a father and son duo. It's free in and really worth a look.
If you walk from the train station there are loads of lovely public art sculptures, the museum is in
the grotto below this pathway.

If you can, get one of them fold-up hiking walking poles. Aldi and Lidl sell them every once in a while.
You could break your neck on the wet paths and hilly walkways in Sintra, especially on the way down to to the
Anjos Teixeira Museum. They seem to be allergic to putting hand-rails on the walkways in palaces and monuments
in Portugal for some reason.


Food
Lisbon is full of tourist cafes selling the usual "pictures on the menu" stuff. These are ok
for coffee and a bun but we didn't have a dinner in any of these places, thankfully.
I didn't drink the tap water at all, I wasn't taking any chances. Here's where we did eat.

Hennessy's Irish Bar - lovely pub grub, but in a area that looked very dodgy after dark,
around Cais do Sodre metro station.

5 Oceanos -Down in Belem - This is a posh steak and seafood restaurant with lobsters
in the tank looking nervously at you. Fantastic steak and great service. However, there is a
massive rail and road bridge overhead, and the restaurant is in the flight path for final approach
to Lisbon airport - the noise is deafening. They had a kind of greenhouse thing outside that
most diners were sitting in. It's worth it for the steak but what a racket!

La Brasserie de l’Entrecôte - Meal of the trip. A classy upmarket steakhouse in Campo
Pequeno. Lovely starter of cheese, breads and fruit. Great steak and loads of it too.
Desert a little basic but very edible. Lovely real coffee afterwards also. €74 for two.
Great service from attentive and sexy waiting staff!

Food court the the Campo Pequeno - In the basement of the Campo Pequeno there is a
shopping centre that has a big food court. There are loads of different little restaurants.
There was one called "Slow" we got a proper dinner of meat, spuds, veg and a
lemonade for €7 each.


Summary
From a tourist perspective I did like the trip to Lisbon. You can really see how powerful Portugal
was during the age of discovery and how it has fared less successfully in more recent times.

I wouldn't feel the need to go back to Lisbon to do the things that I didn't see this trip,
but if I did, I would stay around the Campo Pequeno area again for sure.

As a tourist, I can only describe what I saw, it would be best to have a local friend to help find good places.

I wrote the post as it was the kind of details I would have liked to have seen before I went on my trip.

Please do post any bits that might help someone get more from this lovely city.