We, as a family, tend to do things last minute. By the time we decided to go to Portugal for the holidays, plane tickets were a little expensive. So… we thought that if we go on Christmas Day, then it might be a bit cheaper… who flies on Christmas Day anyway instead of chilling at home with family? (This was my strategy throughout my college years. Heh.) Plus, the French usually celebrate with family on Christmas Eve anyway.
That was a great strategy and all until a couple days before we left, when I finally started planning what we would do in Portugal. (Yup, more last minuteness.) Basically, everything is closed Christmas Day. Luckily, Lisbon is a beautiful city with many hills, therefore it has many miradouros (or viewpoints) to visit. I made a list of all the best ones and we visited half of them.
But… let’s rewind back to Christmas Eve. We had a delicious 8-course meal that took 8 hours. Everyone left by 11pm (much earlier than usual) so that we could get some sleep before our early flight the next day. When I went to the bathroom at 1am, there were two empty suitcases lying out in the hallway and literally no one was in their own bed yet. (See what I mean about the last minuteness?) At that point, I was nervous. What if we oversleep the flight? Are we even going to do anything the first day? We’re just going to crash in our hotel rooms the minute we arrive, right? We had planned to be all awake by 4am to get to the airport.
Well, that ended up not being an issue as we got to the airport with more than enough time to spare. But then, this is when everything started going wrong. First, we show up at the wrong terminal because our ticket was purchased through one airline and operated by another and it was unclear which one we should check in with. Luckily, we showed up early so we hustled over to the other terminal to make baggage cutoff. When we got there, it was clear that something’s not right because no one was checking in any bags even though it was almost cut off time. Instead, there’s this huge hoard of people waiting. Turns out our flight was cancelled. It was a huge mess while TAP Portugal employees tried to figure out what to do. No one understood the concept of a line (but it was Christmas Day and they probably really wanted to get home to their families so fine, I’ll give them that). In the end, they cancelled the flight to Porto instead and used that plane for our flight. So now we’re finally taking off, one hour behind schedule.
Everyone was super tired upon arrival in Lisbon, but no one wanted to waste the day by sleeping, so we went forward with the stuff I planned.
Elevador da Gloria
Luckily, public transit is open on Christmas Day. There are a few elevadors around the city to help people get up steep streets. They are, however, very expensive if you’re a tourist and you show up thinking that you can just buy a ticket as you board. Instead, I found the best thing to do is to go to any metro station and buy a day pass (technically, 24 hours from first use) for around 6 euros.
If you do not have a day pass or if the line is too long, then this funicular is not worth it. It’s only two minutes long and a bit crowded. It’s nice to skip the steep walk, but it’s not that interesting otherwise. The street itself has lots of graffiti, which some people think is art, but there are others who think differently, so it really depends on your preference.
Miradouro Sao Pedro de Alcantara
The first viewpoint we visited is right next to the exit of the funicular. There was a small Christmas market there, but we didn’t spend much time exploring it. We admired the view for a couple minutes and then kept walking, as we were on our way to lunch and didn’t have too much time to spare.
Carmo Convent Ruins
On November 1, 1755, a major earthquake hit Lisbon and destroyed almost the entire city. The Carmo Convent is one of very few buildings that mostly survived. The ceiling collapsed and stuff inside were destroyed. Over time, the city was rebuilt in a more neoclassical style.
Elevador de Santa Justa
The ruins are on the top of this lift and they are worth seeing. However, I don’t recommend taking the lift up. Luckily, we were coming from the other direction so we only went down, but when we got to the bottom, we saw a huge line of people. It was at least an hour wait, if not more. On the other hand, I do recommend paying the 3 euros to walk up the spiral stairs at the top of the lift to the viewpoint. Absolutely beautiful. I was scared the whole way up because I’m scared of heights, but totally worth it. You can’t see the same view from the level where you get out from the elevator.
Lunch
At this point, we are running late for lunch and there’s still quite a bit of walking to do, so we called an Uber instead. Uber is SO cheap in Portugal. It was only a couple dollars to get anywhere for the four of us.
Now, again, because it’s Christmas Day, a lot of Portuguese restaurants are closed. But I did some research beforehand and there are a bunch of hotels that offer Christmas lunches. A took my initial research and compared some restaurants until he settled with Audrey’s. This restaurant is highly rated for some reason, but their Christmas lunch was NOT good. As we found out afterwards, it was also super overpriced.
Miradouro da Graca
To be honest, I had taken this viewpoint out of my list. Lunch took super long and we only had enough time to visit one more for sunset. However, this was right outside the restaurant so we stopped by very briefly. The unique thing about this viewpoint is that it’s right next to a church with beautiful blue tiles.
Miradouro da Nossa Senhora do Monte
This is the viewpoint I landed on for sunset and it did not disappoint. A picture is worth a thousand words so here are a few more to prove it:
Somehow, we made it to the end of the day before retiring back to the hotel where we all proceeded to sleep for over 12 hours. Overall, I was shocked that we managed to survive the first day on so little sleep, but I’m really glad that all of us pushed ourselves to get out and do something, because it would have been easier to just rest. If we had more time, I would have opted for that, but we only had 2 days in Lisbon so we had to make the most of it.
Even more surprisingly, we already edited the video for this day! Watch it here.
A Liu Adventure 