Our flight to Munich came with a nine-and-a-half-hour layover in Lisbon, and we weren’t going to spend it in the terminal. We took a taxi straight into Alfama, the city’s oldest neighborhood, even though it meant arriving before dawn.
It was worth it. We had the streets to ourselves — no people, no cars, just dark, narrow lanes winding up the hills. With no one to dodge, we could stop and admire the tiled faces of the buildings, some in simple patterns, some covered in painted scenes.
We climbed to the Miradouro de Santa Luzia and then on to the Miradouro das Portas do Sol, the two famous lookouts over Alfama, and got there just in time to watch the sun rise over the red tile roofs of Lisbon. A massive cruise ship was making its way into port below us. Otherwise, the view was travel-brochure ready.
As the city started to wake up, we came across a glamour photo shoot in front of a church — clearly we weren’t the only ones who knew about the morning light. We stopped for coffee and a pastel de nata, the custard tart Lisbon is famous for, then kept climbing, all the way to the top of the city and the Castelo de São Jorge.
We wandered the old walls and ruins. The hilltop was a Moorish stronghold until 1147, when Portugal’s first king, Afonso Henriques, captured it with the help of crusaders who had stopped in Lisbon on their way to the Holy Land.
On the way down we walked Rua Augusta, the pedestrian shopping street through the Baixa with café tables running down the middle. It ends at the Arco da Rua Augusta, the triumphal arch that opens onto the riverfront square, Praça do Comércio. The sun was still low and bright in the morning sky when we got there. We hopped in a cab and headed back to the airport.
Not bad for a layover.
