One of my close friends recently celebrated her bachelorette/hen do in Lisbon, a city she had previously fallen in love with and wanted to re-visit. She had raved about the city’s perfect blend of culture, beach and night life; and the amazing food. The bride is a true foodie, who frequently visits nice restaurants across London, so her rave reviews of Lisbon got me intrigued and excited. With six wonderfully ambitious and interesting women on the trip, a range of personalities working across different industries, such as banking and law, came together. I quickly learnt that, amongst other things, we all shared a love of travel, food, and the bride of course. We, her dutiful bridesmaids, were under strict instructions to keep the trip tasteful. For the bride, this meant strictly no strippers and good food was to be prioritised over cheap alcohol and drunken nights. So, when planning the itinerary, we listened to her…. for the most part anyway.

A complete newbie to the Portuguese capital, I was delighted to meet a city full of character and authenticity; this was particularly notable from the locals frequenting the same spots as the tourists, something you don’t always find with popular city breaks. I had visited San Francisco just a month before and I couldn’t help but notice the similarities: both are artsy cities with an intolerance for bad food; both are characterised by quaint trams that travel through hilly streets; both are complemented by open water; and both share an Ibero-Latin heritage; there is a bridge in Lisbon which looks suspiciously similar to the Golden Gate Bridge, but I will get to that later. Both cities also run at the kind of leisurely pace that compels you to be present in the moment. Lisbon, however, is more cosmopolitan, radiates much more colour and boasts the European heritage, eccentricity and charm that naturally develops from a long history.

A late arrival in Lisbon (due to a delayed flight) is no bar to a night out, as I found (Lisbon stays up late): I went straight to join the hen party – who were already at Club de Fado for a late-night supper- from the airport.  It wasn’t so much an entry as an immersion in authentic, live, fado music from the moment I stumbled in with my suitcase; I immediately began to feel relaxed and could feel the traditional Portuguese culture wrap itself around me (or, was it getting under my skin?). I found fado music to be emotive and powerful in a similar way to how I have experienced the opera and classical music, but with a very distinct Portuguese sound. Fado translates as “Fate” and the intensity and depth of the music certainly mirrors this. Whilst some songs were slightly more upbeat, there was a melancholic romance to some of the melodies I heard sung passionately over the guitar. For me, it was the perfect way to spend a first evening in the city and the perfect soundtrack to commencing our appreciation of the city’s traditions. It certainly had a calming effect after a day of waiting around at an airport. The other hens seemed entranced with the music too.

The atmosphere was warm and friendly, but when the live music began, the restaurant fell silent out of respect and admiration. Plates of traditional Portuguese food were already scattered across our table when I arrived. I tried the grilled prawns with garlic, a delicious seafood rice and a particularly flavourful and tender octopus and potato dish. My first taste of Portuguese cuisine reminded me of Mediterranean-style food but with more depth of flavour and spice.

Walking back to the apartment, we encountered a picturesque, narrow, steep, cobblestone street. Cobblestone streets are one of Lisbon’s trademarks and whilst it is attractive as a backdrop to a picture, it’s not exactly high-heel friendly – bring trainers! The street was called Rua das Farinhas and it exuded a lively atmosphere despite hosting only a few bars.

We were drawn into a Basque-Italian cocktail bar called quattro teste where we guzzled down some classic cocktails. Inside, it felt cosy but with a glamorous décor, achieved through the various shades of rich green paint on the walls and the glossy marble bar. The bartender was the sort of person who can just look at you and know what drink to make you. Whether it was a Negroni or an updated version of the classic Cosmopolitan, this bar is an excellent choice for a drink and a good gossip (predominantly about recent trips we had been on followed by a very “highbrow” discussion about our celebrity crushes) before a first night’s sleep in the city.

We brunched at several great places in Lisbon but Zenith was my favourite. A cosmopolitan-looking café full of plants and millennials with exposed brick walls and Bob Marley style tunes playing in the background which all contributed to a chilled energy. We sat in the mezzanine section where we overlooked the rest of the industrial-style, avant-garde restaurant. We couldn’t temper our excitement for our first brunch in the city and, before long, several conversations had sprung up at the table simultaneously as the friends of the bride got to know each other better (a mix of university, school and work friends). Whether it’s pancakes or Shakshuka that sets you up for the day, the food here will not disappoint. There are plenty of gluten-free and vegan options too. A variety of alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks are available including sangria or green smoothies and even a detox shot for the more health conscious. I opted for Eggs Benedict to start with, followed by French toast (which I shared with one of the hens). It consisted of blueberry jam, crème fraîche, mix berries, strawberry, almonds and mint leaves on whole wheat raisin walnut bread. I also tried one of the detox shots (containing spirulina, celery, cucumber, green apple and ginger) whilst waiting for my food to arrive as if that would somehow counteract the calories I was about to consume; it had a pleasant taste but with a bit of a kick. The service was friendly and efficient.

One morning, we were delighted to find a cool brunch place located between Intendente and Graca, on Rua Damasceno Monteiro. Curva, is a quirky cafe/bar/art gallery which offers a range of delectable brunch options; again, a plant- heavy vibe but against simplistic, fresh white walls. The cafe also has a shop and hosts art exhibitions too! The entrance is a large frame where huge doors have been opened letting the natural light flood into the long, thin café section. Initially, we were caught up eagerly discussing our excitement for a day at the beach, so we hadn’t noticed at first how long we had been waiting for our food to arrive. We were trying hard to distract ourselves from our sore heads from the previous day’s brunch and night out. It was particularly busy so we politely checked on our food and it was brought to us shortly afterwards.

I later talk about Java in respect of nightlife, but this rooftop bar/restaurant is also an excellent choice for brunch with beautiful city and river views.

The best way to work off a rich brunch is by strolling around the streets, especially those that were basically canvases for street art. We appreciated the impressive artistic graffiti that adorns the city. The city’s iconic graffiti has deeply historic roots (street art dates back to the 1700s) and has emerged organically, as the city itself grew. The graffiti tells a thousand stories across many eras. During the revolution in the 1970s, people turned to graffiti as a way to express their views. A piece that stood out to me in particular was “Tropical Fado in RGB Tones” painted by muralist, OzeArv in 2021 (photo below). I loved the use of bright colours to speak to the beauty of the birds and nature surrounding a feminine face being grabbed at by four hands. There are endless ways to interpret this piece for your own emotions. Part of the artist’s caption under this particular piece on their Instagram account read “An open space to the appropriation and projection of our senses because cultural identity is all of us…”.

We passed by a talented street saxophonist and stopped to listen to the soulful jazz music he was playing. Our walk took us to the gusty harbour, via the well-known, yellow square/plaza, Praca do Comercio, and we sat by the water to take in the views across the Tejo (Tagus) river which we later explored on a sailing yacht.

I’ve already mentioned the unforgettable experience at Club de Fado for dinner and live music, but there is a wide-ranging choice of cuisine in the city. With a bounty of fresh seafood at the capital’s disposal, visiting a good seafood restaurant is highly recommended.

At Ramiro, we enjoyed a whole selection of delicious seafood including clams, oysters and crab. With unassuming décor, but high-quality food, the atmosphere was down to earth. We were dressed up but we did not feel out of place. The staff were exceptionally friendly and gave us a complementary drink consisting of a lot of vodka; I can’t recall the other ingredients. The tables are snugly close to each other. At one point, a guy from the table of men next to us decided to turn around (uninvited and unprompted) to laboriously “educate” us on the wine we were drinking; and wow, could he whine about wine! The hens were not impressed. His friend, however, did successfully get the number of one of the hens so perhaps the oenophile was harmlessly playing wingman.

If a more glamorous venue is your style, you may want to pay a visit to Rossio, a rooftop restaurant/bar where you can expect a much more stylish and sophisticated environment with incredible views whilst you eat. Observing the guests that evening, the attire was a dressy smart/casual. I liked the music; it was jazzy-electronic-meets-Ibiza sunset and the ambiance was cool and vibrant. There seemed to be an unexpected juxtaposition, however, with the style of music and some of the formally dressed (almost suit-attire) middle-aged clientele that night. We consumed a tasty, but expensive assortment of dishes and cocktails. The oxtail croquettes, octopus pico de gallo, mussel tacos, burgers and pork katsu sandwiches are all great choices. Despite the hens’ relaxed attitude to spending throughout the holiday (yeah, we were living the Condé Nast life now), we felt after a few dishes and drinks that we wanted to pay a visit to the Time Out market to fill up further.

From the moment you walk into this food hall, the enticing and conflicting smells of savoury and sweet hit you. Sushi or street food? Doughnuts or Gelato? Sirloin steak in a bun, wine, cheesecake? This place is an alluring and devastating dilemma for the senses. If you are in a group of varying tastes, the Time Out market is the ideal place to please everyone. You can grab your food of choice from one of the stalls around the edge and return to your group to eat together at one of the long tables that run through the hall. Another thing going for the market is its light atmosphere. Rarely did it feel crowded, despite its popularity.

Prior to our first full night out in Lisbon, we surprised the bride when we brought her back to the apartment after a day of sight-seeing. We had decorated the apartment with beautiful balloons, banners, a selection of baby photos and lots of fun hen-do games such as prosecco pong and other tacky games which the bride loved…despite her earlier instructions. After finishing our hair and makeup, we all moved into the apartment lounge to play games, eat snacks and sing along to the 90s RnB playlist we had on.

Every bride needs to be a little embarrassed by her friends on her hen do, so we ensured our bride- to-be was wearing the obligatory sash and light up tiara/veil for our night out. She wasn’t happy about this and kept trying to take it off, but we ensured there was a penalty of a shot every time this happened. It turned out that alcohol was not a sufficient deterrent.

When it comes to night life, Java rooftop bar is the perfect place to set the tone for a night out. Think panoramic views, cocktails, an exciting and bustling ambiance making you feel confident that it is the place to be and putting you in the mood to mingle. It’s an extremely sociable venue: we ended up in conversations with stag groups and people from all over the world including France, Germany and South Africa. We liked the place so much that we returned to this rooftop bar a couple of days later for brunch.

After feeling sufficiently warmed up for the night, we headed over to LX factory, host to restaurants, bars, galleries and bookstores. It was only transformed from an abandoned factory yard to a hub of entertainment at the end of the noughties but it has, nevertheless, gained a lot of hype and traction. But, despite being a Friday night, the street was very quiet so we wondered if we had arrived too late to see the day time flurry and too early for it to come alive at night. We were still able to enjoy drinks and dancing together in one of the empty bars before moving on though. One of the hens showed us her salsa moves inspired by the Latin American style of music playing. Those salsa classes finally paid off.

If the pandemic has left you missing the overcrowded, sweaty nightlife we once knew and loved, then Pink Street is for you. Bustling bars and cramped clubs live on this pink-painted, Instagram- featured street. There are bars to drink and chat in (and outside of) and bars to dance in.  I have seen a lot of negative reviews about Pink Street online, predominantly about its lack of safety. I can only speak for my own experience on this one occasion. It felt as safe as any other bar strip filled with intoxicated people: have your wits about you. I wonder if its particularly bad reputation for safety derives from it originally being the city’s red-light district before it had a major overhaul and rebrand as a street that began in 2011. Whilst I have no negative story to report, it’s helpful to travel in a group and to be as savvy as possible when it comes to safety.

From Lisbon, you can be at The Ocean Beach Bar for an afternoon at the beach in a 30-minute taxi ride. The Tom Misch-style music and a classic beach club vibe full of bamboo and rattan décor with rows of planters, invoke a happy, holiday feeling from the moment you arrive. It’s a great place to get some group snaps or, alternatively, just to chill. On the beach, you can purchase two sunbeds and a parasol for around 30 euros and there is no entrance charge. From our sun-beds all we could see was the turquoise ocean washing over the smooth, golden, sand. Above us was a bright blue sky with the occasional, peaceful cloud. We all felt relaxed and immediately sunk into some down time whilst drinks were brought to us. Later, some of the hens went for a swim in the sea and had a beach photo-shoot whilst I drank cocktails and chatted with one of the hens about societal pressures on careers and relationships. Whilst we were of course missing our partners to some extent, we all have similar views of what a healthy relationship is; getting married does not change our desire to spend time with friends and travel. The trip was affirming that time with friends is truly important. Honest conversations, after all, allow us to breakdown the façade of perfection that parades on social media and to understand the reality that others live too. Mental health struggles, for example, are often not declared as a caption next to your holiday post on social media, but that doesn’t mean the person posting isn’t struggling.

Belem is the birthplace of the tasty pastel de natas – a must try, Portuguese delicacy. The scrumptious custard tarts were invented before the 18th century by monks at the Jerónimos Monastery in Santa Maria de Belém. Convents and monasteries used egg-whites for starching clothes and would often have leftover egg yolks which they used to make cakes and pastries. Consequently, sweet pastry recipes became widespread throughout the country. You can find the original version, ‘Pastel de Belém’ at Pasteis de Belém. We stopped by the famous bakery to purchase several of the fresh, warm, tarts before sitting in the garden of Afonso de Albuquerque to eat them. I’m not usually a fan of custard desserts but this tart, a gooey custard mouse encased in a crisp pastry, converted me.

Wandering around Belem admiring the colourful architecture while munching on a pastel is the ideal way to whet the appetite for a later, more culture-oriented visit. The Centro Cultural de Belém, the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos and the Torre de Belém are all interesting buildings that deserve to be explored and learnt about in more detail than we had time for on a hen-do weekend. The district has a wealth of sites to explore and is popular with touristy crowds. Our walk led us to the harbour from which you can take a boat trip on a variety of yachts.

History aficionados, especially of the Portugal’s colonial past should definitely stop at the “Monument to the Discoveries” (Padrão dos Descobrimentos), a 52-metre-high monument built to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the death of Henry the Navigator. In the shape of a ship’s prow, it features more than 30 statues of historical figures (Vasco da Gama, Magellan, Dias, Saint Xavier, de Camoes to name a few) who played a big part in Portugal’s Age of Discoveries. We then set sail along the Tagus River on a stylish sailing yacht to watch the sunset. For a two-hour trip, the six of us paid around £180 in total and you do need to pre-book online. There was one other similar sized group of women at the other end of the boat, although they arrived so late, we almost had the boat to ourselves. We at least managed to snag the best seats at the front of the boat.

We sailed under the Ponte 25 de Abril (25^th of April Bridge), a burnt-orange steel suspension bridge that was reminiscent of the Golden Gate Bridge I had recently visited. It turned out that it’s based in part on two San Francisco Bay Area bridges. Its paint is the same colour as the famous Golden Gate Bridge, but the design is similar to the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. Our yacht tour guide informed us that it was built by the same company as the Oakland Bay Bridge too. Whilst the bridge looked similar, the impact was different. The large size of the Golden Gate Bridge against a vast setting left the observer feeling insignificant. In Lisbon, the bridge is smaller and not in as much contrast to its surroundings. It was an additional detail that perfected an already rich and interesting scene that you became of part of.

As we passed by the Cristo Rei (Christ the King) we learnt that it is a Catholic monument and shrine located in the city of Almada across the Tagus River, overlooking Lisbon. Inspired by Rio’s Christ the Redeemer statue, the 110-metre-tall Cristo Rei was erected in 1959.

We used our time on the yacht as another opportunity to play some hen games. We had video recordings we had asked the bride’s fiancé to record prior to the trip. We played the classic Mr and Mrs question game. “What do you think are the bride’s worst habits?” “this is difficult as there are so many….”, “what is your pet name for the bride?” and so on. The bride had to guess what her partner’s answers would be and then we would see his recorded answer played back. This game is perfect for hen trips as it then leads to the wider group talking about their relationships and many funny revelations. After lots of laughter, we watched the sun set over the Lisbon cityscape. As the sky returned back to blue and we watched the orange and yellow clouds dance above the dark blue horizon, the mood became calm and reflective.

We braved the heat to walk through the Bohemian district of Bairro Alto on a hot, sunny day and it’s really the best weather to explore the neighbourhood. The sunlight highlights the rich peaches, pinks and yellows that sing through the city on the buildings. Throw in a cyanic sky and the colourful buildings were even more beautiful to walk by. There were the ubiquitous cobblestone streets, colourful buildings and quirky shops but, thankfully, not the crowds in the day time. In the most charismatic part of an already charming city, I took some time for myself to read a book in an al fresco coffee shop whilst an idyllic, yellow and white tram passed by, the rattle of the metal and fleeting conversations providing an aural punctuation. Some of the other hens chose to have some alone time too so that they could really take in the city by themselves. I reflected on the trip and the wonderful ladies I had made memories with. I felt revived for our return to England and will certainly return to Lisbon on more than one occasion to soak up the endless culture on offer here.