Hi, thanks for visiting! This blog is part of a football double-header in September 2026, that would see me enjoy three nights in Lisbon, before making my way to Copenhagen in Denmark for another match and three-night stay.

The link to, I suppose, the second half of the trip will be included on the homepage or at the bottom of this post once completed!

Furthermore, I’m getting to the stage now where many of the places I go to for the football, is not my first time either visiting nor writing about it. Therefore, I am glad to share THIS LINK that will take you to my previous visit to Lisbon in February 2022.

You will notice the previous blog post covers a few things I won’t do this time around, such as trips to Sintra, Cascais, outside of the Benfica stadium, Belem Tower, the Santa Justa elevator, Tram 28 and some other general wanderings around the city.

If you are seriously looking at this in anticipation of your own visit, reading both is essential, as I give more of an idea of costs etcetera and whilst they are 4 years out of date they remain good ball-park figures. In general, prices are surprisingly cheaper than you’d expect.

Anyway, let’s focus on 2026.

Costs and Accommodation

Unusually, for this trip I did not have return flights, as I departed Lisbon for Copenhagen via Geneva after the stay in Portugal! You can however get cheap flights to Lisbon for under £150 return from the UK including Bristol, which is closest to home for me.

Initially, I paid just £60 for outbound flights using RyanAir and Vueling. However, at 3am(!) on the day of the trip, I thought that a 90-minute layover in Barcelona was leaving it a bit too close without transfer insurance, so wasted said £60 and forked out another £119 to fly directly. My two flights to Copenhagen after (via Geneva) were around £50 each using EasyJet.

I stayed in Residence Almirante, which is seconds away from the Intendente metro station and a 20-30 minute walk to the tourism central. I can’t really tell you if it was a hotel or an apartment, but it did include an on-suite and shared kitchen. It was a bit grubby and up three flights of steps, although on the whole it was ideal for the good-value £50 a night I paid as it had my non-negotiables… a shower with high pressure, security, and a plug socket by the bed. There’s a little more about the digs shortly, but I do want to start with the itinerary.

In total, I think I spent in the region of £500 on this leg of the trip, having bought a few too many beers both for myself and others! Can’t take it with you and all that nonsense….

Itinerary – Day One

I departed home for Bristol airport an hour later to accommodate a slightly later 2pm flight time, which my mother / personal taxi driver welcomed. I was a bit disappointed to see my initial RyanAir flight NOT delayed, to back up my decision. Nevertheless, upon arriving in Lisbon, I was extremely satisfied with my last minute-change of plan to fly direct as I easily navigated the metro via one change to get to my accommodation.

Back to the hotel… the window overlooking a main street was a pleasant feature and doubled up as an excellent clothes drying area and smoking area! The kitchen next door was also used to keep some cold drinks and I used the sink a few times for my clothes. Hand-washing my clothes was essential for this trip and I’m very proud of myself for not running out of pants! It was very hot during my stay, so that desk fan was also a life-saver!

Whilst I sometimes get frustrated about walking the same path as previous trips, it’s a bit different when I’m solo-travelling after having first visited with my wife. It brings back nice memories. One such example was food close to the hotel at Aegan restaurant, offering Nepalese, Indian and Portuguese cuisine. It is located in one of many squares called Martim Moniz, which isn’t the nicest but you do get a good view of the castle.

We visited here for our last meal in 2022 and having built up an appetite during a day of travelling, savoured the strange combo of Portuguese fishcakes, chicken samosas and a large bucket of chicken biryani, which, with two beers and a water came to £25 including tip.

Following a very satisfactory evening meal, I rambled towards the riverside whilst watching Newport County overcome Swindon away 2-0 in the cup, which was a very nice accompaniment to my evening. My journey took me down Rua Augusta street, where many touristy bars, restaurants, and people trying to sell you knockoff watches, sunglasses or drugs tend to congregate. The benefit of this was to end up walking through a big archway into Praça do Comércio, a large plaza with your typical bloke-on-horse monument and higher end eateries.

I ended walking up this way to quickly get to the riverside, where I knew there would be a decent view of the bridge that space the Tagus river. More on that tomorrow. I don’t think I noticed the beach area last time, and I reckon you can go have a swim during the lighter hours.

A sub-plot to the evening was the idea of meeting a few friends for ample drinks, but my dinner being processed and a day’s travel gave me second thoughts. I did however, use this opportunity to pick up a gift for the wife, from somewhere I didn’t know about on my last visit!

After some steep hills and exertion that said wife won’t be able to appreciate, I arrived in the lively shopping area of Chiado. It is here, that Livraria Bertrand holds the Guinness World Record for being the oldest bookshop IN THE WORLD, first opening in 1732.

My first thought was that it didn’t look too befitting of the title, but then what is a 300 year old book shop supposed to look like? As it was now 20 minutes until closing, I quickly managed to find the first installment of Harry Potter, in Portuguese of course, and made my way to the checkout.

My wife is about as Portuguese as Nando’s (a common misconception as it is in [fun] fact, South African), but it’s a book she has already read hundreds of times, yet this one has a stamp confirming it was purchased in the world’s oldest bookshop – which I hope she’ll find kinda’ cool. I’m 90% certain that we walked past here as a couple in 2022, without batting an eyelid as to the significance of the store.

After climbing the hill to get to the bookshop, I more than deserved an ice-cream, passing the Santa Justa lift, the weird thing pictured. I covered it in my 2022 post so won’t here, and if you don’t want to walk up/down a hill to/from the Chiada district, or pay and queue to use this glorified elevator, there is a large 6+ level shopping mall nearby with escalators that do the job fine.

After finishing off my dessert, it was the final nail in the coffin for the idea of starting a boozing session, and instead chose to walk the 20 minutes back to my room.

Day Two

As I was washing my socks and pants in the kitchen sink, I was joyous about not having a hangover this morning. I slept with the window wide-open throughout the night, listening to music to negate the traffic. Not one bug had entered the room.

What the early start did ask though, was what would I choose to do today? I’ve already discussed ideally not wanting to re-trace steps from a previous visit, yet nothing really stood out. I would be seeing the big bridge later on today, so I decided on Castelo de São Jorge, the castle that offers unrivalled views across Lisbon and the Tagus river.

I questioned whether £15 entry was a waste of money, but disputed this after peacefully sitting, overlooking the city for a good 30 minutes before some photographs and a walk deeper into the grounds.

I keep meaning to get a better phone/camera and find it no more apparent than the photos here, as the views look so much better in person. It was too late now though, so I cracked on. So the castle itself sits inside a sort of citadel, and the castle walks are free to walk along. It’s a bit dangerous, mind. The area also has an archaeological site, a museum which was awful (undergoing renovation I think), cafe, toilets, and a few dozen peacocks – I took a great photo of one in 2022 by the way.

I would have enjoyed the visit more if they provided some basic information board around the place, as I can’t tell you anything about the history. The museum did have about eight placards, but these had way too much information on to interest someone who had just decided his next stop was a beer.

I seem to have actually lived a few hours of my life without taking a photo here. To be honest, here is where the tourism stops and the beers begin so don’t expect anything National Geographic.

I had planned for lunch but, now 11:30am, decided to have a beer instead with friends in the plaza mentioned last night. TEN fucking Euro. Completely avoidable.

As a group we picked up our football match tickets from a hotel on the Avenue da Liberdade, the road in Lisbon you’ll see the fanciest of hotels and fashion brands. No interest in that, but it was a bonus to saviour three beers in a bar in the middle of the avenue, somehow costing just 4€ here for the same fucking liquid.

Those three beers were only supposed to be one, as I intended to drop my ticket off back at the hotel and meet my friends riverside. That didn’t happen and once I finally dragged myself away, I was waiting for my buddies outside their AirB&B (with another beer) and we got a taxi rather than negotiated relatively complex public transport to the bridge, which is a distance away from the heart of the city.

The “25 de Abril” bridge spans over a kilometre over the Tagus to join Lisbon with Almada. It’s name comes from the date of the Portuguese Revolution in 1977. Since being built in 1966 it has six car lanes and two train tracks that run underneath the bridge. In the lead up to the trip I did see one publication call it the “Temu Golden Gate Bridge”, and, whilst being humorous, was rather unfair. I’ve yet to visit San Francisco (very high up on list) so I’ll be anticipating their version which is twice the length of this one.

The reason for our bridge meet-up, was to experience my first ever ‘beer-bike’. Up to ten people power a wagon whilst being served beer on tap and sangria out of 2 litre pop bottles. 35€ each for the ‘pleasure’, which lasted around an hour.

I won’t be in a rush to do one again, but that it certainly not to say I didn’t have a good time. It was the first time I met up with my North-Wales friends on the trip along with a few other Wales-supporting strangers, so that was cool. Doubt I got my monies worth in beer and sangria but I gave it a good go.

After getting off that uncomfortable bloody saddle, we all had a few ciders in a bar along the river. The alcohol was now adding up. Plus the heat. I was, however, in a fit state to get the taxi back to Chiada, metro to hotel, drop off my ticket and head back out.

That evening I met other friends, Newport-based this time, in ‘pink street’, a popular tourist hotspot lined with bars. It has a pink floor, basically. There’s not too much to say really here. I drank a lot, spent too much money, managed to get a taxi home, realised I hadn’t eaten for about 36 hours and fell asleep before I could do anything about it!

Day Three

Somehow, the hangover gods were looking down to me today. Having spent most of the day before consuming beer, cider and sangria, without eating, that’s me out of action for 3-4 days back home. Yet here I was, matchday, up at 9am to wash more clothes and back at Aegan restaurant for another three-course sampling of their menu… and a long island iced tea to brush away any minimal cobwebs. Chicken soup and chicken pakora with salt and chili chips. Nothing massive. Long day ahead and needed the room.

From there, it was a swift metro to a different part of the riverbank, not far from the Time Out market that is recommended for foodies, accessible from the Cais do Sodre metro. My destination was right on the shore to a yard housing several portacabins offering a range of bites and beers. Not cheap but you pay more for the location.

Any remnants of last night’s beers swiftly disappeared with a couple of ten euro litres of sangria.

In hindsight, perhaps I should have stayed there for the hours before kick-off, but ultimately we moved on to visit the pre-match party arranged for Wales fans, back up the bloody hill near the Chiada district.

Whilst nearly getting run over by the most famous tram in Europe, and getting lost, which eat away at are ever-reducing drinking time, we did eventually make it to whatever the bar was called. I could check my banking app but I do not want to be reminded of the 52€ round I merrily offered to get in, which was only a beer and four spritis with mixer.

Although the journey from pub to stadium was a few stops on the green line and presented little hassle, it was rather frustrating for the line to experience faults, just as many of the 52,000 spectators were making their way. At one point we had to leave the train and wait for another. By the time we did eventually pop up from underground with Estádio José Alvalade, it was looking unlikely we would make kick-off and I still desperately needed a wee.

Wee completed, it was apparent that we never would have made it for the anthems due to a very slow security bag-check post and WAY more steps that I expected, even knowing we’d be up in the second tier. I think we made it two minutes into the game.

The game itself was a 1-0 loss to Portugal. No huge horror there, but it was frustrating that their goal came from a(nother) Danny Ward goalkeeper error. I was disappointed we didn’t give it more of a go in the remaining 10-15 minutes to risk 2-0 in pursuit of a draw, and all-in-all it was a bit naff as expected.

The game will be remembered, globally, because Ronaldo thought he scored his 980th career goal, only for VAR to overturn it due to offside. After he hit the ‘siuuuu’ too, looking like the baddy Homelander from The Boys TV Series. Then he got subbed off. Bless him.

After the game we were kept inside the ground for a ridiculous amount of time whilst the home fans all buggered off. This is the norm, but usually, the whole area around the ground doesn’t reek of raw sewage, which is something I pondered about whether to include as I’d prefer to to be reminded of it.

Now getting to the stage of ‘if you don’t laugh, you’d cry’. The metro line again broke on the way back. Luckily, it was at the stop for one friend’s hotel, whilst I stayed with the other for her to get an Uber back into town. For me, it was a bang-on thirty-minute straight walk to mine. By the time I arrived at the researched kebab shop near my accommodation, I took no shame in ordering two doner wrap [meals], polished off in the room before a good night’s kip.

Day Four (part one)

Although I was hangover free today, I was a bit tired and hit the snooze on the alarm a good few times (I am on holiday remember).

I did intend to visit the Sanctuary of Christ the King statue this morning. This is the “Temu Christ the Redeemeer” that you can just make out in a few of my photo’s on the other side of the 25 April bridge. Getting there would involve a metro, boat, bus, and the reverse to get back in a couple of hours, and I didn’t quite have it in me. Unlike the ‘proper’ bridge, I have been lucky enough to see the massive baby Jesus statue in Rio (which I question whether it should have the title of ‘wonder of the world’, but that’s an argument for another day).

After yesterdays metro shithousery I noticed the green line, to kick-off my journey to the airport, was not working, only once I reached the platform. Back up 50 steps, probably a metro fare paid for nothing and a €7 Uber required, in heavy traffic due to the Metro crapness, to the airport.

With that considered, it was nowhere near enough to stain my experience on the trip. I loved it. Nice weather, good food, lots of beer, a few sights, lots of walking… even the game was entertaining enough, considering we’re not very good.

Here’s hoping I have an excuse to visit again.

Thanks for reading, BUT the trip does not finish there. Remember, from the airport, I was making my way to Copenhagen, to see Wales play again in a few days. The Copenhagen blog will pick up from here i.e. Lisbon airport.

YOU CAN CONTINUE READING BY CLICKING HERE. (When it’s ready = very soon, promise).