Lisbon in a Day: Oceanário, the Cable Car and the Classics

Lisbon's headline attractions are scattered enough that trying to see them all in one day sounds like a bad idea, and mostly it is, but a handful of them cluster nicely around Parque das Nações and can be done back to back if you get an early start and book ahead online. The Oceanário de Lisboa is the obvious first stop: one of the largest aquariums in Europe, built for Expo 98, with a central tank holding sharks, rays and a sunfish that seems to enjoy the attention. Arrive at opening time, because by eleven the school groups arrive in force and the walkways in front of the shark tank turn into a scrum of raised phones.

Right outside the Oceanário, the Telecabine Lisboa strings you gently over the riverfront gardens for about ten minutes, from near the aquarium up to the Vasco da Gama tower. It is not thrilling in the rollercoaster sense, it is thrilling in the quieter sense of watching the Tagus spread out below you while your legs get a rest after a morning of standing in front of fish tanks. Buy a one way ticket and walk back along the river promenade, past the casino and the shopping centre shaped like a boat, rather than doubling back the same way.

If you want to fold in the older city, that is really a separate half day, and trying to squeeze it into the same afternoon usually just means rushing. The Santa Justa lift, that ironwork tower dropped into the middle of the Baixa, connects the lower shopping streets to the Carmo ruins above, though the queue for the lift itself can run to forty minutes; walking up the stairs beside it costs nothing and takes five. Tram 28 is the other classic, rattling through Graça, Alfama and Estrela on tracks laid for a much smaller city, and it is genuinely useful transport, not just a photo prop, provided you avoid boarding at Martim Moniz around midday when tour groups pile on.

Belém deserves its own morning or afternoon rather than a rushed add on: the Jerónimos Monastery, the Belém Tower down by the water, and the pastel de nata queue at Pastéis de Belém, which moves faster than it looks because they bake in enormous batches. If you are doing both Parque das Nações and Belém in the same trip, put them on different days, since they sit at opposite ends of the city and the metro plus tram connection between them eats more time than the sights themselves.

Buy the Oceanário and cable car tickets online the night before if you can, since both sell timed slots in summer and the walk up counter often only has spots for later in the day. A Lisboa Card can be worth it if you are also doing museums, but for this particular combination, individual tickets bought in advance usually work out simpler and about the same price.