I know there are a number of vicarious travelers on the forum, and I have been meaning to post this for a while. Here are my notes I shared with a fellow traveler that wanted our itinerary. If you want pictures and more stories, I have the link in my profile to my fledging blog.
Day 1: Belcanto tasting menu- This took 2 1/2 plus hours, but is something I will never forget. We did a sunset sail on the Tagus river that night. About 2- 2 1/2 hours on the River, us the skipper and a friend helping with the boat. We had a bottle of wine and snacks. Super lovely host and time. Felt all the tension coming out of my shoulders as we unwound.
Day 2: Food tasting tour in Lisbon with Oh my Cod tours. This is another multi hour affair. WORTH IT! Lovely guide teaches you history of 3 of the neighborhoods and takes you to local restaurants. Oh my Cod has several different tours available depending upon your schedule and interests. Delightful host and nice time.
Day 3: Belem touring. We started out by going all the way to end of the tour to Belem tower and worked our way back. We hopped an Uber (cheap and easy here) and had them drop us off at the tower. There is a little not fancy café where we had breakfast close by. We then worked our way back, stopping at the Monument to the discoveries, Maritime museum, then Belem Monastery. For us, the museum as interesting to learn about Portugal history, and we literally had the whole thing to ourselves. See if you can figure out how to get your monastery tickets ahead of time. Couldn’t buy tickets online at that time. There were lines here, even for the free tickets. We skipped it this day as the lines worried us a bit as some folks weren’t great here about social distancing (lots of tourists). Pay the 10 euros or whatever and buy ahead of time to skip the lines if you can. I know Rick says it is free but when we got up there the “helpful” person at the ticket machine told us it’s not free (even though we could see the option for the free tickets right on the screen). It was a boondoggle, but had we got the tickets ahead of time this would have been great and we could have save a half hour or so (which matters when it is really hot out).
Late afternoon went tinned fish shopping. Had a delightful conversation with a local business owner in Lisbon that owns a tin fish shop. Bought stuff to bring home. This was a neat fun experience.