Lisbon: The Tram 28 Trap

Transcript

The queue at Martim Moniz stretches past the kebab shop and halfway around the square. Every ten minutes a yellow tram clatters in, doors open, and fifteen people squeeze into a space designed for half that. The rest of the line shuffles forward and waits again. This is the daily summer reality of Tram 28. And the question I hear most from listeners is not whether the ride is worth it. It is this: how do I see Lisbon’s hills without depending on the tourist tram?

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The route runs roughly seven kilometres from Martim Moniz, just north of the Baixa, uphill through Graça and Alfama, then back down across the Baixa, past Chiado, São Bento and Estrela, to Campo de Ourique. It climbs three of Lisbon's steepest hills and passes four major viewpoints within three blocks of its tracks. In practice, the same route is single track along some of the narrowest streets in the city. When a tour group blocks the intersection at Portas do Sol, the tram stops. When a delivery van double-parks in Rua da Graça, the tram waits. The end-to-end ride stretches past an hour in high season, entirely because of congestion, not distance. What the route gives in scenery, it takes back in unpredictability.

So the listener asks: how do I see Lisbon's hills without depending on the tourist tram? The short answer: you walk, you use one funicular that the crowds mostly ignore, and you pick a route that works with the slope instead of fighting it.

Start in Graça, not at Martim Moniz. The tram queue at Martim Moniz is the most visible problem in Lisbon in summer. It forms early, sometimes before ten in the morning, because each yellow Remodelado tram carries roughly forty people standing and seated, and one arrives every ten to fifteen minutes. When a cruise ship empties onto the square, the line can stretch past the kebab shop and halfway around the square. The wait at the terminal can exceed forty-five minutes before the morning is over. The tram is a working public transit line, not a dedicated attraction with capacity planning. It does not run extra trams for tourist demand. So do not board at Martim Moniz if you value your morning.

The better move is to walk uphill first. From Martim Moniz, climb Rua da Graça. It is a steady slope, not a punishing one, and within ten minutes you are at Largo da Graça, where the same tram passes on its way up. Boarding there cuts the queue to one tram cycle, roughly ten to twenty minutes. Or skip the tram entirely and keep walking. The climb takes you past the Miradouro da Senhora do Monte, the highest viewpoint in the area, where the whole city opens up: the castle, the Baixa grid, the river beyond. That is the view people queue for at Portas do Sol, without the crowd and without the pressure to move on.

The Remodelado trams themselves are not museum pieces. They are nineteen-nineties rebuilds of a nineteen-forties design, yellow and wooden-trimmed for the look. The rattle, the hand-operated doors, the overhead wire arcs at each stop, those are real. If the sensation of a historic tram ride is what you want, Tram 28 can deliver it, but only at the right hour. Before eight in the morning, the first cars from Martim Moniz carry people going to work. The queue is short, the air is cool, and the route shows itself in natural light. Late evening after eight works too. Off-season, between November and February, you can often ride end to end with a seat.

Now for the funicular that the crowds mostly ignore. Lisbon has three funiculars, all run by Carris, the same operator as the trams. They are short, steep rail lines that climb specific hills and accept the same Viva Viagem card as the tram and bus network. The Glória funicular connects Praça dos Restauradores to the Miradouro de São Pedro de Alcântara at the top of the Bairro Alto. It is the most convenient of the three because it starts next to a metro station and ends at a viewpoint. The Bica funicular runs a steep, cinematic street between Rua de São Paulo and Largo do Calhariz, but its cars are small and queues form even outside peak season. The Lavra funicular, the oldest in Lisbon, connects Avenida da Liberdade to the Campo dos Mártires da Pátria. It sits at the edge of the tourist circuit and is rarely crowded. Lavra is the one worth using as transport, not as a photo prop. It saves the steepest part of a climb without the queue.

If you want to cover the same ground as Tram 28 without the tram, walk the route in reverse. Start at Campo de Ourique, take the metro or a bus to Jardim da Estrela, then walk uphill across Estrela and into Chiado, descend into Baixa and climb again into Alfama and Graça. The total walking distance is about six kilometres. The hills are steep, but you control the pace and can stop at Miradouro da Senhora do Monte and Miradouro de Santa Catarina without rushing. Walking the route in reverse means the sun is at your back in the morning and you end at the viewpoint, not at a queue.

There are also parallel bus routes. Bus routes 28 and 40 run roughly parallel to the Tram 28 corridor across Graça, Alfama, and Baixa. They cost the same as a tram ride on your Viva Viagem card, run more frequently, carry more standing room, and rarely have queues. The bus will not win a photography contest, but it will take you from Alfama to Baixa without waiting forty-five minutes to board.

A word on the Viva Viagem card itself. It is a reusable contactless card sold at metro station ticket machines and ticket offices. On it you load either zapping credit or a twenty-four-hour pass. The card works on the metro, Carris buses and trams, the three funiculars, and the ferries to Cacilhas. Buy the card at a metro station before you board anything. The failure case is buying single on-board tram tickets from the driver instead. That costs more per ride, requires exact change, and on Tram 28 it slows the boarding queue. Get the plastic card, load credit, and you are set without queuing again.

One more alternative worth knowing: Tram 12 runs a shorter loop from Praça da Figueira across Alfama and back. It uses the same Remodelado vehicles and passes the same tight streets around Portas do Sol, but the route is half the length and the queue is shorter because fewer people know about it. Ride this in the morning for the Alfama experience without committing to the full Martim Moniz to Campo de Ourique journey.

The hills are the real challenge, and a map hides the gradient. A walk from Praça do Comércio to the Castelo de São Jorge is a serious climb on cobbled limestone pavement. The same distance from Baixa to Bairro Alto gains sixty metres of elevation. The funiculars exist exactly for this problem. Use them for the uphill leg; walk the downhill. And if you are in Alfama, remember that the quarter splits into two zones. Lower Alfama, from the riverfront up to Largo das Portas do Sol, carries the heaviest footfall between ten in the morning and four in the afternoon. Push through it quickly to reach the upper residential lanes, where the crowd noise drops and the neighbourhood returns to its actual scale.

The common mistake visitors make is trying to see Lisbon as a checklist of viewpoints, trams and monuments while staying in Baixa and eating every meal near Praça do Comércio. The result is queues, exhaustion from hills and a bill padded by couvert charges. The alternative is to drop one landmark, add one neighbourhood walk and eat one meal in Campo de Ourique or Graça. If a restaurant has a tout outside it, walk past. If a queue is longer than ten people, ask yourself whether the alternative is a short walk away. For most traps in this city, it is.

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