Lisbon
Lisbon
Things we love:
Lisbon has on average 260 days of sun per year
They have a miniature version of Rio’s Christ the Redeemer
The Portuguese are football crazy
The downtown area of Lisbon is actually floating on the sea.
The Portuguese national music fado (pronounced fadu) divides Lisbon’s young people. It’s recently had a revival and reinvention.
Things we wish we’d known:
Superstitious Portuguese reckon that if you take a seat at a table’s corner you will marry a hunchback… oops!
They have a Roman underworld beneath the city with chambers, rooms, bridges and corridors only open to the public for two days a year.
For a great portrait of Lisbon life, elegance, vanity, hypocrisy and humour, read Maias by Eca de Queros before you go.
Lisboners love to sunbathe. Every different beach has its own colour due to the sand type. Some beaches turn you grey, so watch out!
Clube Ferroviario
Fabulas
K Urban Beach
Lost In
Loucos & Sonhadores
Lux Frágil
Pensao Amor
Pharmacia
The Decadente
Ze dos Bois
 |
Clube FerroviarioThis is a great, unusual place – a big bar with a distinct Berlin feel spread over the two floors of an old ‘train club’ – good start. A big roof-terrace is decorated inventively with train bits and bobs, like Read More |
 |
FabulasFabulas is a sweet little bar in the Chiado, the swish shopping area of Lisbon. It is squirrelled away, and you enter either through a courtyard or through a door in a steep alley. Fabulas is a cellar with vaulted Read More |
 |
K Urban BeachThe approach is more outlandish than what’s inside: the big, white cuboid of K Urban Beach stands alone on the river in the Santos district. Get delivered (by cab/mates) to the big car park before you walk the long, lantern-lit Read More |
 |
Lost InThis is a wonderful bar slash restaurant, a real local favourite hidden away in a courtyard. Of all the places in Lisbon, Lost In’s large parasoled veranda is one of BarChick’s favourites to waste away an afternoon or spend a Read More |
 |
Loucos & SonhadoresLocas e Sonhadores (madmen and dreamers) is a secret underground cellar with a musty, revolutionary feel and a story behind it. The bar was set up by seven friends for the purpose of discussion and debate about art, literature and Read More |
 |
Lux FrágilLux, a warehouse on stilts, is Lisbon’s most famous club; however, it has a rooftop bar, and as clubbing kicks off very late in Lisbon, the main space feels and functions like a bar up until past midnight. All the Read More |
 |
Pensao AmorPensao Amor is an old brothel, restored to a T. This is the vogue destination of Lisbon, a place to rub shoulders with artists, musicians and other hipsters. With its chandeliers, lurid 18th century painted ceilings, plentiful drapes and kissing Read More |
 |
PharmaciaThe entrance to Pharmacia is the first thing that strikes you: through wrought-iron gates, across a lawn, to your table on the veranda. How often do you enter an urban bar across a lawn?! Good start. Only once I had sat Read More |
 |
The DecadenteThe Decadente is a former palace in the old part of town which has been converted into a bar, restaurant and hostel (The Independente). The bar, The Decadente, opened recently and you can sense this in the friendliness and professionalism of Read More |
 |
Ze dos BoisZe dos Bois is at odds with surrounding Bairro Alto, the epicentre for going out. This place is a god send if you’re not feeling the hecticness of the party crowds. A dusty staircase leads you past a large gallery Read More |