A city of tiles, light and two exceptional collections, and a contemporary scene that keeps growing along the river.
An oil magnate's collection, from Egypt to Lalique, in a 1969 modernist building in a garden. The Modern Collection (CAM) reopened in 2024 with a new building by Kengo Kuma.
Portugal's national collection of old masters, in a palace above the docks, with Bosch's Temptation of Saint Anthony and Nuno Gonçalves's Saint Vincent panels.
Five centuries of Portuguese tiles in the convent of Madre de Deus, with a gilded chapel.
Amanda Levete's wave-shaped museum of art, architecture and technology beside an old power station, with a walkable roof.
Rooms, ruins and curiosities: the city's other museum.
A 17th-century palace whose gardens are lined with blue-and-white azulejos: monkeys playing music, knights, the months.
A city of family mausoleums with lace curtains in their windows, at the end of the 28 tram line.
A bookshop in an old printing works, with a bicycle flying overhead.
A Brutalist church of 1970 by Nuno Teotónio Pereira and Nuno Portas, with concrete stairs and walkways that turn it into a covered street.
Behind an ordinary door is a neo-Moorish courtyard and staircase from a 19th-century palace. Upstairs are tiled dining rooms and a ballroom, now the Alentejo regional club and its restaurant.
A beer hall since 1836 in the refectory of a former convent, its walls covered with 19th-century azulejos of the seasons and the elements.
Palaces in the forest, 40 minutes by train.
Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga at opening → tram 15 to Belém → MAAT → lunch → back to the Gulbenkian for the afternoon.