Getting around Lisbon

Get the card first

Everything starts with a rechargeable Navegante occasional card, a thin green paper card sold from machines at every metro station for €0.50. Buy it before you do anything else. Loaded with zapping credit, it drops a single metro or bus trip to roughly €1.65 instead of the €2 or more you pay in cash on board, and it works across metro, Carris buses and trams, the funiculars, the Santa Justa lift, the CP trains to Sintra and Cascais and the Cacilhas ferry. One card per person; it cannot be shared through a gate.

The alternative is the 24-hour pass at about €6.80 for metro, bus, tram and funiculars, or around €10.50 for a version that adds the Transtejo ferries and the suburban trains. If you plan to ride the 28E tram once, take a funicular and cross to Cacilhas in a single day, the pass pays for itself before lunch. The separate Lisboa Card, at roughly €27 for 24 hours, bundles transport with museum entry and only makes sense if you are doing Jerónimos, Belém Tower and two or three other paid sights.

The metro: fast, limited, useful

Lisbon has four lines and they are colour-coded rather than numbered: azul (blue) from Reboleira to Santa Apolónia, amarela (yellow) from Odivelas to Rato, verde (green) from Telheiras to Cais do Sodré, and vermelha (red) from São Sebastião to the airport. Trains run from about 6.30am to 1am, every three to six minutes at peak. Baixa-Chiado is the key interchange for visitors, though its escalator shaft is long enough to feel like a ride in itself. Stations are clean, well signed in English, and some, like Olaias and Parque, are worth a look for the tilework.

The gap is coverage. Alfama, Bairro Alto, Príncipe Real, Belém and Santos have no metro station, which is why buses and trams still matter. The rule of thumb: metro for anything along Avenida da Liberdade, out to Parque das Nações or to the airport; surface transport for the historic hills and the riverside west. The airport connection on the red line takes about 22 minutes to Alameda and 30 to Baixa with one change, for the price of a normal ticket, which is unusually good value for a European capital.

Trams and funiculars

The 28E is the famous one, running from Martim Moniz through Graça, Alfama, Baixa, Chiado and Estrela to Campo de Ourique on 1930s wooden Remodelado cars. It is also a rolling pickpocket opportunity and, from 9am, a 40-minute queue at Martim Moniz. Board instead at Graça or Estrela, go in the opposite direction, or ride the near-identical 12E loop. The 15E to Belém is a modern articulated tram, air-conditioned and genuinely practical, leaving from Praça da Figueira and Cais do Sodré roughly every ten minutes.

Three funiculars climb the worst slopes: Glória from Restauradores up to the São Pedro de Alcântara viewpoint, Bica from Rua de São Paulo up to Bairro Alto, and Lavra from Largo da Anunciada. A return ticket is about €4.10 bought on board, or free with a 24-hour pass, and each ride lasts under three minutes. The Elevador de Santa Justa, the wrought-iron lift beside Rua do Ouro, costs around €6 return and has a permanent queue; the free walkway from Largo do Carmo reaches the same upper terrace.

Buses, ferries and trains

Carris buses fill every gap the rails leave. Route 737 climbs from Praça da Figueira to the castle gate and saves you the worst of the hill. The 758 and 773 handle Príncipe Real and Bairro Alto. The 728 runs the riverfront from Cais do Sodré out to Belém and Algés. Buses take Navegante cards or cash at a higher price, and stops show timetables that are broadly honest outside rush hour. Night buses labelled with an N run roughly every 30 minutes after the metro stops.

The ferries from Cais do Sodré to Cacilhas take ten minutes, cost about €1.55 with a card and run every 10-20 minutes until late; they are commuter boats, not tours, and the view back at the city is the best cheap thing in Lisbon. CP trains from Cais do Sodré reach Belém in 7 minutes and Cascais in 33; trains from Rossio reach Sintra in about 40 minutes; trains from Santa Apolónia and Oriente serve Porto and the north. All accept the same Navegante card with zapping credit.

Walking, taxis and apps

Central Lisbon is walkable in the sense that the distances are short, but the calçada portuguesa, those small white limestone cobbles, is polished slippery by decades of feet and lethal in rain. Wear shoes with rubber soles and treat downhill as harder than uphill. Useful cheats: the free public lifts at Elevador do Castelo near Rua dos Fanqueiros and the Elevador da Baixa through the shopping centre on Rua dos Fanqueiros, both of which lift you towards the castle without any stairs at all.

Bolt and Uber both operate and are cheap by European standards: Baixa to the airport runs €10-15, Chiado to Belém €8-12. Licensed taxis are cream or black-and-green, start at about €3.50 and are fine if metered, though airport queues attract the occasional chancer. Do not rent a car for the city itself; parking is scarce, most of Alfama and Bairro Alto is impassable, and the ZER low-emission zone covers Baixa and Avenida da Liberdade. Rent one at the airport on the morning you leave for the Alentejo, not before.

Airport transfers, practically

Humberto Delgado Airport sits 7km from the centre, which is why it is one of the easiest arrivals in Europe. The red metro line runs from the terminal from 6.30am to 1am; change at Alameda for the green line to Rossio and Cais do Sodré, or at São Sebastião for the blue line to Baixa-Chiado. Total time from gate to Chiado is about 40 minutes including the walk. Buy the Navegante card at the machines in the arrivals hall and skip the ticket queue at the platform.

If you land after 1am or you have real luggage, take a Bolt from the designated pick-up area on the departures level, which usually costs €10-14 to the centre, or a metered taxi at €15-20 plus €1.60 for bags. Carris bus 744 and 783 also serve the city for a normal fare but crawl in traffic. From Chiado, Alfama or Bairro Alto, remember that your driver may not reach the door: agree a drop-off at a square like Largo do Carmo or Portas do Sol.

Which neighbourhood makes transport easiest

For pure connectivity, Baixa and Chiado win. Baixa-Chiado station puts two metro lines under your feet, Cais do Sodré is a seven-minute walk for the Cascais train and the Cacilhas ferry, Rossio station serves Sintra, and Praça da Figueira is the departure point for the 15E tram and the castle buses. If your trip involves day trips, staying within this triangle removes an hour of daily shuffling. Rates of €140-260 reflect that, but the time saved is real.

Alfama and Bairro Alto are the opposite: beautiful, and awkward. Both rely on trams, funiculars and legs, and both are hard to reach by car after dark. Príncipe Real sits between the two, an eight-minute walk from Rato on the yellow line with the Glória funicular below it. Cais do Sodré and Santos are strong for anyone heading west, to Belém, Cascais or the beaches, thanks to the train line along the river. Choose by where you plan to spend your days, not by the map alone.