Explore Alfama, Graça and Chiado Without the Hills

Every guidebook agrees: the soul of Lisbon lives in its old town. Alfama’s tangled alleys, the viewpoints of Graça, the cathedral, the elegant streets of Chiado. What the guidebooks mention less is that all of it sits on the city’s steepest hills — and that the famous Tram 28, the “easy” way up, often comes with an hour-long queue and standing room only.

There’s a better way to do it. Here’s the old town, neighborhood by neighborhood, the way we drive it every day.

Start in Baixa-Chiado

The flat downtown grid is the natural starting point. From Baixa you pass Santo António Church — built on the birthplace of Lisbon’s beloved saint — and reach the Sé, Lisbon’s 12th-century cathedral, its fortress-like towers a reminder that this city has been fought over for a very long time.

Portas do Sol: the postcard

A few curves uphill (this is where you’ll be glad you’re not walking) is the Portas do Sol viewpoint. This is the Lisbon photo you’ve seen: white church towers, terracotta roofs tumbling down to the Tagus. Come in the morning and the light lands directly on Alfama below you.

Graça and Senhora do Monte

Higher still is Graça — a real neighborhood, where laundry hangs between Art Deco façades and the pastelarias serve locals, not tour groups. Its two viewpoints bookend the visit: Graça Church’s terrace, and Senhora do Monte, the highest miradouro in Lisbon. On a clear day you can see the castle, the river, and the bridge in a single view.

Down through Alfama

São Vicente de Fora Monastery and the white dome of the Panteão Nacional mark the top of Alfama. Then the district itself: Lisbon’s oldest neighborhood, a Moorish-era maze of alleys too narrow for cars, where fado was born and where getting slightly lost is the whole point. We stop, and you wander in on foot — the only way Alfama can be seen.

Finish in Chiado

Cross the downtown once more, past Praça do Comércio’s riverfront arcades and the improbably photogenic Pink Street, and climb (effortlessly) into Chiado: Camões square, the Carmo Convent’s roofless Gothic arches, and the iron lattice of the Santa Justa Elevator — best photographed from above, at Carmo, where nobody queues.

How long does it take?

On foot, honestly? A full exhausting day, most of it uphill. In one of our electric tuk-tuks, the Old City tour runs from a focused 1-hour loop to a leisurely 3-hour version that covers everything above with proper time at each stop — from 100€ per tuk-tuk, up to 4 people, with a private guide who grew up with these streets.

See the Old City tour →