Tram 28 is a small wooden box that every visitor has been told to ride. The route is good. The experience, in the middle of the day, is often a long stand on a steep street while the car arrives already full. Lisbon is a walking city with a public transit system that can do the climbing for you. Use the hills. Let the tram be a bonus if you catch one early.
Start in Alfama before the shops fully open. The point is the slope: lanes that turn into stairs, a glimpse of the river, and the way the neighborhood sounds when it is still residential. Walk up toward Miradouro da Senhora do Monte or the easier Portas do Sol if your knees prefer a view with a café. Come down through Mouraria rather than retracing the same stair. Mouraria is where the city feels lived-in at 11:00, and it connects naturally toward the lower streets and a late breakfast.
A practical transit pair
Buy a reloadable transit card if you are staying more than a day. The metro is useful for longer jumps — Baixa to the river stations, or out toward LX Factory and the western districts — and the buses and trams cover the ridges the metro ignores. Elevators and funiculars are part of the network, not novelties. Gloria and Bica save a climb. They are also short rides, so do not build an afternoon around waiting for one.
Belém is a separate half-day, not a stop “on the way.” Go for the monastery cloisters if you care about the building, and go early. Pasteis de Belém is a pleasant ritual and a long line. There are other custard tarts in the city. Eat the famous ones if the line is short enough that you are still hungry at the end of it.
Where to sleep
Baixa and Chiado put you on flat ground near the metro, which matters with luggage. Alfama is beautiful and vertical; check the last hundred meters on a map before you book, including stairs. A room “with a view of the castle” can still be a walk you do not want at midnight. For a three-night stay, central and walkable beats a view you only see while hunting for the key safe.