Fourteen Days from Lisbon to Casablanca
October 4–17, 2025 · Ben and Marta
“Lisbon to Casablanca in a fortnight, mostly by train, because we wanted to feel the distance rather than skip it.”
The ground covered
Lisbon
4 days
Day 1 Arrival
Overnight, landed 8am, and we made the classic mistake of booking a room we couldn’t get into until three.
Where you go when you have four hours and a suitcase. Fine. Loud. We would not go back with a choice.
Slept badly on the plane and spent the first day in that useful fog where you agree to anything. Walked most of Baixa without meaning to.
Day 2 Alfama, properly
Get there before nine and you have it. After eleven it is a queue for the same photograph.
Garlic shrimp, and then more garlic shrimp. The best thing we ate all trip and we ate very well.
Two hours of getting lost on purpose. The 28 tram went past four times and we never got on it, which felt like the right call.
Day 3 Sintra
40 minutes, runs constantly, costs almost nothing. Go early; the town fills by ten.
The initiation well is the thing everyone photographs. It earns it. The gardens above are emptier and better.
Beautiful from a distance and a scrum up close. We queued 50 minutes and saw it mostly over shoulders.
Sintra is a day trip that wants to be two days. We tried to do three palaces and did one and a half properly.
Day 4 Belém and the last Lisbon night
Yes it’s the tourist one. Yes they’re better warm and they only are here.
Good bookshop, good coffee, more gift shops than it needs.
Porto
3 days
Day 5 North to Porto
Book a window on the left going north. Comfortable, punctual, and the last hour is worth staying awake for.
A beautiful staircase and a hundred people photographing it. Ten minutes inside, and we paid for the privilege.
Day 6 The river
Walk it at dusk from the Gaia side. Free, five minutes, and the best thing in the city.
We learned the difference between tawny and ruby and forgot it by Madrid, but the terrace was worth the ticket alone.
It rained for two hours and we sat it out under an awning with a glass of white port and tonic, which nobody had told us about and which we then ordered every evening.
Day 7 Matosinhos
Twenty minutes on the metro and you are at the Atlantic eating whatever came in that morning. Barely a menu.
Madrid
4 days
Day 8 East to Madrid
Short and unremarkable, which is what you want. There is no good train on this leg, and we checked twice.
The neighbourhood market rather than the famous one. Cheaper, better, and nobody was photographing their food.
Day 9 The Prado, and only the Prado
Three hours, one wing, no attempt at the rest. Best museum decision we have ever made.
Rowing boats, a busker doing Leonard Cohen badly, and the light going orange behind the Palacio de Cristal.
Day 10 Toledo
33 minutes. Book the return before you go; the afternoon trains sell out.
Steep, medieval, and almost empty by six when the coaches leave. Stay for the evening if you can.
Day 11 A day with nothing in it
We had booked nothing and nearly filled it anyway. Instead: coffee, a long lunch, a nap, and a walk with no destination. The best day of the trip and the only one with no photographs.
Casablanca
3 days
Day 12 Across the water
Two hours and a different continent. Get dirhams at the airport; the medina is cash.
We knew exactly what it was and went anyway. The piano is good. The rest is the film.
Day 13 Hassan II
Take the guided tour — it is the only way inside, and the scale does not read from the outside.
Working, not curated. We bought nothing and it was the most interesting hour of the day.
Thirteen days in and the Atlantic is the same ocean we started on. That took a moment to land.
Day 14 Home
Direct, eight hours, and we slept most of it for once.
Highlights What stood out
“Garlic shrimp, and then more garlic shrimp. The best thing we ate all trip and we ate very well.”Best meal — Cervejaria Ramiro, Lisbon
“It rained for two hours and we sat it out with a glass of white port and tonic, which nobody had told us about and which we then ordered every evening.”Best accident — Vila Nova de Gaia, Porto
“We had booked nothing and nearly filled it anyway. The best day of the trip and the only one with no photographs.”Best day — Madrid
Reflection Looking back
Five places in fourteen days is one too many and we would do it again. What we would change: two nights fewer in Lisbon, two more in Porto, and stop booking the first morning after a night flight. What we got right was the empty day, which we nearly cancelled twice.