This was our 9th cruise with Azamara, but our first ever transatlantic and our first cruise on the Pursuit. We chose it because we love sea days, but it also had 6 ports of call, so a good combination.

We had a couple of nights in Lisbon before the cruise and were really pleased that we had done so, there’s so much to see and do. We booked the Holiday Inn Express Avenida de Liberdade mainly because it’s very close to the metro. It was a good choice - very comfortable, just refurbished, and with a good breakfast (which included the Portuguese speciality of custard tarts- Yum!). The only snag was that as this was mainly a business area there were few restaurants nearby - you had to walk a little way towards the student area to find them.

In the morning we bought a one day public transport ticket at the Marquis de Pompal metro station and used that to get to the old town area where we caught the tram to Belem, which was lovely. We walked to see the magnificent Monument to the Discoverers, and went into the lovely Igreja (Church) de Santa Maria de Belem. We caught the tram back & then caught the famous 28 tram through the uphill winding streets of the old town. We got off at Campo Ourique and caught the 25 tram back, getting off near the Cais de Sordre, then walked along the front to the beautiful Praca de Commercio, before getting the metro back to our hotel. Read more