5 Best Things to Do in Lisbon During Web Summit

The Founder's Collection reopened in July 2026 after eighteen months of work on climate control, lighting and security, and the 1969 building by Alberto Pessoa, Pedro Cid and Ruy Jervis d'Athouguia has come through unchanged. Calouste Gulbenkian left roughly 6,000 objects; about 1,000 are on show at any one time, from Egyptian and Islamic material through to Rembrandt, Rubens and a room of René Lalique glass and jewellery. Next door, the Centro de Arte Moderna reopened on 20 September 2024 with a Kengo Kuma extension, a 100-metre canopy clad in Portuguese ceramic tiles and a holding of some 12,000 works. Gardens across the 7.5-hectare campus are free, sunrise to sunset.

One date matters more than the rest. The museum closes every Tuesday, which in 2026 falls on 10 November, the second day of Web Summit. Monday 9 November and Wednesday 11 November are the realistic weekday slots, and Sunday 8 November is free from 14:00 if you land early. Standard admission is €16 for the Founder's Collection, €12 for the Centro de Arte Moderna and €18 combined, with 25 percent off for under-30s and 10 percent off for over-65s. Weekday hours are 10:00 to 18:00, Saturdays run to 21:00, and last entry is 30 minutes before closing.

Pro Tip: Take the Red Line straight from Oriente to São Sebastião, about 17 minutes with no change, then walk five minutes to Avenida de Berna. Arrive at 10:00 on Wednesday 11 November: the galleries stay near-empty for the first hour while most delegates are still queueing for the morning keynote.

Estufa Fria is a greenhouse dropped into a disused quarry on the western flank of Parque Eduardo VII, and it opened in 1933. The original cold house covers roughly 8,100 square metres under a slatted timber roof that filters light instead of trapping heat, which is why the planting reads as ravine rather than conservatory. Two glasshouses were added in 1975: the Estufa Quente, warm and humid, and the Estufa Doce with its cacti and succulents. The whole site runs to about 1.5 hectares and reopened in April 2011 after two years of structural repairs. Streams, ponds and stone paths thread through it, and a full circuit takes 45 minutes.

What earns it a place during Web Summit is the clock. Winter hours begin at 09:00, two hours before anything opens at the FIL, and São Sebastião is on the same Red Line that runs to Oriente, so you can leave the greenhouse and be at the venue inside half an hour. Published adult admission is about €3.25, though municipal listings have also shown €3.10, so carry a coin either way; entry is free on Sundays and public holidays until 14:00. The downsides are real. It is small, and November rain leaves the stone paths genuinely slippery.

Pro Tip: Go in at 09:00 through the Alameda Edgar Cardoso gate and take the lower path first, before school groups arrive around 10:30. If you are heading on to Parque das Nações afterwards, walk the eleven minutes to São Sebastião rather than the seven to Parque: it puts you on the Red Line with no change.

Around 100,000 azulejos remain in place on the walls and staircases here, one of the largest tile ensembles left in situ anywhere. The church was built between 1582 and 1629 to a design attributed to Filippo Terzi, and the cloisters carry an eighteenth-century cycle illustrating the fables of La Fontaine, made when Portuguese tile production had shifted to the Royal Rato factory. The former refectory was converted into the Bragança Pantheon, where the monarchs of Portugal's last royal house are buried. The roof terrace is the part most visitors skip, and it looks straight over Graça, the Tagus and the white dome of the Panteão Nacional.

Winter hours, from 1 November to 31 May, are 10:00 to 18:00 daily with last entry at 17:00. Adult admission is €8, dropping to €6 for over-65s and Lisboa Card holders and €4 for under-25s, and under-12s go free; a guided tour adds €4. During Web Summit week the free viewpoints around Graça fill with delegates at sunset, but the monastery roof shuts an hour before that, so the terrace stays quiet while the miradouros a few streets away do not. The trade-off is distance: 6.5 kilometres from the venue, and a change of mode.

Pro Tip: Ride a Comboios de Portugal suburban train from Oriente to Santa Apolónia, two stops and under ten minutes, then take Carris bus 734 to Voz do Operário. Go up to the roof terrace first and the cloister second: the tiles are lit all day, the view is not, and the terrace is at its best between 10:00 and 11:30.

Cristo Rei earns its place mostly through how you get there. The ferry from Cais do Sodré to Cacilhas crosses the Tagus in about ten minutes for €2.00 on a standard occasional ticket, or €1.60 with zapping credit, and it runs on a corridor Web Summit traffic never reaches. From the Cacilhas terminal, Carris Metropolitana bus 3001 climbs to the Almada (Cristo Rei) terminus in roughly fifteen minutes. The monument was inaugurated on 17 May 1959, fulfilling a vow the Portuguese bishops made in 1940 if the country were spared the war. Its portico stands 82 metres tall and the statue on top adds another 28.

Terrace access costs €10 for anyone aged 13 or over and €3 for ages 8 to 12, with under-8s free, and tickets are sold on site only, so there is nothing to book ahead. October to March hours are 10:00 to 18:00 daily, last entry 17:40. Two warnings before you commit. The final approach is a staircase of 74 narrow steps, which rules out wheelchairs and makes this a poor choice for anyone with limited mobility. And it is a half-day: allow about three hours door to door from Parque das Nações, which means writing off a full block of sessions.

Pro Tip: Board a Cacilhas ferry at Cais do Sodré by 16:15 and take the first bus 3001 that follows. Sunset in Lisbon in mid-November falls at roughly 17:25, which puts you on the terrace as the light goes down behind the Ponte 25 de Abril while still clearing the 17:40 last-entry cut-off.