Lisbon has a forest, and almost nobody walks it. Monsanto is nine hundred hectares of pine on a hill above the city — planted from bare ground in the 1930s — and at the top of it sits the strangest viewpoint in Portugal.
Four kilometres, mostly under trees. Getting in is the honest catch: there's no metro, so you take a bus up from Sete Rios, and the hill routes change, so check the line on the day. Once you're inside the Parque Florestal, leave the roads for the marked woodland trails — the canopy closes over and the city disappears. Alto da Serafina is the natural breather, a clearing with a viewpoint and water.
Then the oh-my-god: the Miradouro Panorâmico de Monsanto, a derelict 1960s restaurant the city turned into a free terrace, every surface sprayed, 306 degrees of Lisbon below you. It's been opening only intermittently — check first. Walk down through the woods to Campolide and the train, the aqueduct marching across the valley as you go.
