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I have been to Lisbon four times and I have never once gotten the hills right. Every trip I would look at a map, see that two places were half a mile apart, and decide to walk it. And every trip I would arrive twenty minutes later than I planned, out of breath, having climbed what turned out to be a staircase pretending to be a street. It never really mattered then. It matters now that I am planning Lisbon with kids.
Of everything I could be thinking about, the hills are what I keep coming back to. Not the food. Not the tiles. Not the light that comes off the river around five in the afternoon and makes the whole city look like it has been lit on purpose. The hills. Because a hill you can shrug off at thirty with a backpack is a completely different object when you are pushing a stroller and someone very small needs to be asleep in forty minutes.
Lochlan is twenty months old and we have not taken him to Portugal yet. So this is not a post about how it went. It is the post I would have wanted from someone who knew the city well and was working out the toddler part out loud. That is where I am.
The short version
Stay in Baixa or Belém, not Alfama. Bring a carrier and treat the stroller as a bonus rather than a plan. Build the trip around the flat parts of the city and let the hill days be half days. Three full days is enough for Lisbon itself with a toddler. And skip Tram 28, which I know is not what anyone wants to hear.
That is the whole answer. Everything below is why.
Where I would base us, and it is not Alfama
Alfama is my favorite part of Lisbon. It is the part I would walk you through first if you came with me. It is also the one neighborhood I would not book with a small child, and I say that as someone who has stayed there and loved it.
The problem is not that Alfama is hilly. It is that Alfama is stairs. Not a slope you can lean into, actual flights of steps between one street and the next, over and over. There is no version of that with a stroller, and there is no version of it at the end of a long day with a twenty-pound child on your front either.
So I would book Baixa. It is the flat grid down by the river, laid out after the 1755 earthquake, and the streets run straight and level in both directions. Rossio, Baixa-Chiado and Cais do Sodré stations all have lifts from the street to the platform. You can get out of your door with a stroller and go somewhere without planning the route first, which sounds like a small thing and is not.
Belém is the other one I would consider, especially for a first trip. It is further out but it is wide and flat and faces the water, and it puts you a short walk from most of what you would actually want to see with kids.
In my original Lisbon travel guide I listed Bairro Alto, Chiado, Avenida da Liberdade and Príncipe Real as places to stay, and all of that still holds if you are traveling without children. Príncipe Real in particular is beautiful and I would still send a couple there. It is also uphill from everything, and that one fact reorders the whole list once you have a toddler. If you want the country-wide version of this, I went through it properly in where to stay in Portugal with kids.
The stroller question, answered honestly
Lisbon’s pavements are calçada, those small white limestone blocks set by hand into patterns. They are genuinely beautiful and they are genuinely terrible to push a stroller over. The surface is uneven, the joints grab small wheels, and when it rains they get slick.
If you bring a stroller, bring one with large air-filled wheels and a rain cover. The little umbrella strollers that fold into nothing are the wrong tool here. But my honest plan is a carrier as the default and a stroller for the flat days, because I would rather carry him up a hill than fight a stroller up one.
The metro is the good news. Forty-seven of the fifty-six stations have lifts from street level to the platform, including the airport. A single ride is €1.90 and children under four ride free with an adult as long as they are not taking up a seat. I would get a reloadable Navegante card at the first station and stop thinking about tickets.
One thing has changed since I wrote my older Lisbon posts, and it matters for planning. The Glória, Bica and Lavra funiculars and the Santa Justa Lift have all been closed since September 2025, after the Glória derailment. The Graça funicular went back into service at the end of April 2026. I listed the Santa Justa Elevator in my top 10 things to do in Lisbon and I would not plan on it right now. Check carris.pt before you build a day around any of them, because the shortcuts up the hills are a real part of how the city works and several of them are not working.
I have an autoimmune disease, and one of the things it has taught me is to plan the rest in rather than hope for it. That turns out to be exactly the same skill as planning a day around a toddler. I wrote more about how that shapes the way we move around the country in getting around Portugal with a toddler.
Belém is the day I would build the trip around
If I only got one good day in Lisbon with Lochlan, it would be Belém. It is flat, it is on the water, the paths are wide, and four of the things worth seeing are within about a fifteen-minute walk of each other. That combination does not exist anywhere else in the city.
Tram 15E runs out there and has low-floor cars, which is the one tram in Lisbon I would attempt with a stroller. Belém Tower from 1514 is right there on the river, and the Jerónimos Monastery is a few minutes inland. The Discoveries Monument has the mosaic world map laid into the ground in front of it, and a twenty-month-old does not care about the history but will absolutely walk the map.
Two practical notes I would not have thought about before. The inside of Belém Tower is a narrow spiral staircase with two-way traffic, and I would look at it from the outside and keep walking. At the monastery, the church and the lower cloister are reachable by ramp, but the upper cloister and the tower are stairs only. So you can see the best of it without the climb, which is more than I expected.
And then Pastéis de Belém, which has been making the custard tarts since 1837 and is a few doors from the monastery. Eat them standing up, still warm, cinnamon on top.
Parque das Nações, which I used to skip entirely
In my Lisbon travel guide I wrote that Parque das Nações was the area for business travelers. That was true of the trips I was taking then. It is the wrong advice for a family and I will say so plainly.
The whole district was built for Expo 98, which means it is flat, purpose-built, wide, and has a riverside promenade and playgrounds. Oriente station has a lift. If you have one day where the weather is bad or everyone is tired, this is the day.
The Oceanário is the main reason to go. Adult tickets run about €25.50 to €29.90 and children three to twelve are around €15.50 to €17.70, with under-threes free, and the price moves with the time slot. Allow two to three hours and book ahead in summer, when slots sell out. The Pavilhão do Conhecimento science center next door is €11 for adults and €7.50 for children, but it is really built for four and up, so I would hold that one for a later trip. The cable car along the river is €9.50 return for adults and €6.50 for children and runs about 1.2 kilometers in twelve minutes, which is roughly the length of a toddler’s attention for being up high in a glass box.
What I would skip in Lisbon with a toddler
Tram 28. I know. It is the shot everyone wants and I have ridden it and enjoyed it. But the cars are from the 1930s, you board up steps, there is no floor space, and it runs so full in the middle of the day that people stand pressed together for the whole route. It is also the single worst spot in the city for pickpockets, and I would not want to be managing a child, a bag and my pockets at the same time. If you want the ride, do it without the kids, or take the 15E to Belém and get the tram experience with somewhere to put your feet.
São Jorge Castle is the other one I would think hard about. It is €15 for adults and €7.50 for children, the walk up from Alfama is steep, and what is at the top is walls and towers and a lot of unfenced edges. I would take a taxi up if we went at all, and I suspect we will not go on this trip.
Everything in here is also in my Portugal for Families guide, if you would rather have it in one place than in eleven open tabs. It is a 13-page PDF with the full ten-day itinerary and a section for every stop written for traveling with small children.
Where I would actually eat
When I wrote best restaurants in Lisbon I was eating at Belcanto and Alma and Prado, and those were some of the best meals of my life. They are also tasting menus, and I am not taking a twenty-month-old to a nine-course tasting menu. That whole list is still there for a trip without him.
What I would do now is Cervejaria Ramiro, which has been open since 1952 and does garlic shrimp and clams in garlic broth and tiger prawns. It is loud, it is fast, it is bright, and the staff have seen everything. Loud is a feature with a toddler. The line is long, so go on a weekday or go early.
Ofício has indoor and outdoor seating and works for a group, which means it also works for a family that may need to leave abruptly. A Cevicheria in Bairro Alto is tiny and takes no reservations, and I would not stand at a window bar waiting for a table with a child on my hip, so that one comes off the list for now.
The real answer is the prato do dia, the dish of the day, at whatever family-run place is nearest at one in the afternoon. It usually comes with soup, dessert and coffee, it arrives fast, and it is the cheapest good food in the city. I put the numbers behind all of this in what I am budgeting for our family trip.
🛒 A few things I use for this
- A structured toddler carrier, which is the single most important thing on this list for Lisbon
- A travel stroller with large air-filled wheels, because small hard wheels and calçada do not get along
- A universal stroller rain cover, for the weeks when the stone gets slick
- A wide-brim sun hat, since there is very little shade on the riverfront
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How I would shape the days
Three full days for Lisbon itself, and then out of the city. One flat day in Belém, one flat day at Parque das Nações or along the river in Baixa, and one half day of hills with a carrier and no agenda. Mornings out, afternoons back at the apartment, out again around five when the light turns and the city calms down.
Then I would go to Cascais, which is forty minutes by train from Cais do Sodré and has sheltered beaches, or to Sintra, which is thirty to forty minutes the other way and which I have climbed three times without a stroller and have no idea how to do with one. I am still working that out. The full plan is in our 10-day Portugal itinerary with kids, and I went through the arithmetic of how long you actually need in how many days in Portugal with kids.
Questions I get about Lisbon with kids
Is Lisbon good for toddlers?
Yes, with one caveat. The food, the pace, the fact that children are welcome in restaurants at any hour, and the sheer amount of outdoor space all work in your favor. The topography does not. If you choose where you stay around the hills instead of around the views, it is a good toddler city. If you book on a hill and plan to walk, it will be the hardest trip you have taken. I went into this at more length in is Portugal good for families.
Is Lisbon stroller friendly?
In parts. Baixa, Belém and Parque das Nações are flat and perfectly fine. Alfama, Bairro Alto and Príncipe Real are not. The calçada pavement is bumpy everywhere, including on the flat, so wheel size matters more than it does at home. Plan on a carrier for at least half of each day.
Can you take a stroller on Tram 28?
Realistically, no. You board up steps into a car with no open floor, and at busy times you will not get on at all with a stroller. A carrier is the only workable option, and I would skip the 28 entirely with a small child. Tram 15E to Belém has low-floor cars and is a different experience.
How many days do you need in Lisbon with kids?
Three full days. That gets you Belém, one flat day in the city, one half day of hills, and a day trip if you want it. Two days works if you accept you are only doing Belém and Baixa. More than four and you will have run out of things a toddler cares about.
What is the best area to stay in Lisbon with kids?
Baixa, for the flat grid and the metro stations with lifts. Belém if you want quiet and water and do not mind being further from the center. Parque das Nações if you are leaning hard into the easy version, which is a reasonable thing to lean into.
When is the best time to go to Lisbon with small children?
May, or late September into early October. The hills are the deciding factor again. July and August in Lisbon means climbing stone streets in full sun with a child strapped to you, and no amount of planning makes that pleasant. I made the case for May properly in the best time to visit Portugal with kids.
I keep thinking about the five o’clock light on the river, and whether he will be awake for it or asleep against my shoulder, and honestly either one sounds fine.
If you are planning the same trip, everything I have written about the country so far is in the Portugal archive, and the packing side of it is in what I am packing for Portugal with a toddler. Come tell me what I am getting wrong about Sintra. I would genuinely like to know before we go.
