Lapa is where Lisbon keeps its ambassadors, and it shows: a hill of nineteenth-century mansions, half of them now embassies, kept behind shutters and brass plates with almost no traffic to disturb them. This is the unhurried way through — the diplomatic streets, the national gallery, and the river at the bottom.
Start high, by the white dome of the Basílica da Estrela, and let the hill take you down. The streets below — Rua de São Domingos à Lapa and the lanes off it — are the calmest grand quarter in a steep city, the azulejo (tile) frontages and iron balconies hiding consulates and old money. Walk slowly; there's nothing to dodge.
The hill ends at the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, the Portuguese national gallery, in a palace over the docks. Nuno Gonçalves' Panels of St. Vincent are the reason to go in — but even if you don't, the garden café terrace looks straight down the river over the cranes, and it's free. Drop through Santos, warehouses turned studios and bars, to the riverfront, and follow it east to Cais do Sodré — trains, metro and ferries, whichever way you're going.
