The beautiful city of Lisbon in Portugal is a destination filled with incredible architecture, winding cobblestone streets and colourful buildings wherever you go with amazing viewpoints throughout. It is a vibrant and completely captivating city that has quickly become one of my favourite places to visit in Europe.

I have been lucky enough to visit Lisbon twice – once for a three night city break and once for only a single day when sailing on a Transatlantic cruise. Having experienced the city from both perspectives, I can confidently say that Lisbon works beautifully no matter how much time you have ashore or on land. (more…)

I had always wanted to visit the Azores for as long as I can remember so it was very exciting to wake up on this morning knowing that the day had finally arrived. I got woken up early at 6:45am when the thrusters on the ship came to life and when I walked out onto the verandah, I could see the lights of Ponta Delgada on the island of San Miguel in the darkness ahead of us. (more…)

After falling asleep very quickly the evening before and as we had gained an hour overnight, I woke up just after 5:00am and the first thing I did was go out onto our verandah to get some fresh air and I could already see the lights of Lisbon off in the distance. As our stateroom was on the opposite side of the Disney Dream to what the city would be and once we got a little bit closer, we quickly got dressed and headed up to a chilly Deck 13 along with a handful of our fellow passengers with a hot drink in hand to watch as we sailed past the Belem Tower, the Padrão dos Descobrimentos (Monument to the Discoveries) and then finally under the Ponte 25 de Abril bridge at 6:20am. (more…)

One of the most popular tourist attractions in Lisbon is the Santa Justa Lift (Elevador de Santa Justa) which connects the lower streets of the Baixa area to the higher Bairro Alto neighbourhood. Whilst the lift features on many people’s must-do lists whilst in Lisbon, it is not worth the long wait as the line can often get incredibly long (often an hour or more) especially if you have limited time in the city. However the view across the city from the observation deck at the top is amazing and you can access this with no wait and without having to use the lift and you can also save money in the process! (more…)

One of the best ways to travel from Lisbon Airport into the centre of Lisbon is by using the Metro which is cheap, safe, efficient and incredibly simple and easy to use.   The Metro station is located next to Terminal 1 (which we used) at Lisbon Airport however if you arrive at Terminal 2 which is used by the low-cost airlines, you will need to take the free shuttle bus between the terminal buildings which runs every ten minutes. (more…)