Lisbon Cathedral

Lisbon Cathedral tickets: which one to buy

The nave is free; the cloister and the treasury each charge a small separate fee, and a combined ticket covers both. The cloister is the more interesting of the two because an archaeological dig has been running in it for years, exposing Roman, Visigothic and Moorish layers beneath the Gothic arcades. The treasury holds church silver and vestments in upstairs rooms. Guided walking tours of the Alfama district include the cathedral and cost several times the entry.

Tuk-tuk tours stop outside for photographs with the tram; tram 28 passes the west front and the shot of a yellow tram in front of the twin towers is the reason half the visitors are there. Nothing needs booking. The cathedral is a ten-minute walk uphill from the Baixa, and the streets around it are steep and cobbled. The treasury entrance is inside the church to the right of the altar and is easy to walk past; the cloister door is on the far side of the ambulatory.

Visiting Lisbon Cathedral: what to see

Afonso Henriques took Lisbon from the Moors in 1147 with the help of northern crusaders and built a cathedral on the site of the main mosque; an English crusader, Gilbert of Hastings, became its first bishop. The west front is late Romanesque and frankly military, two crenellated towers flanking a rose window, built to double as a fortress. Inside, the Romanesque nave gives way to a Gothic ambulatory built in the fourteenth century, and to a baroque chancel installed after the 1755 earthquake, which the cathedral survived better than almost any other building in the city.

The relics of St Vincent, the city's patron, were brought here in the twelfth century; legend says two ravens escorted the boat that carried them, which is why ravens appear on Lisbon's coat of arms. St Anthony of Padua was baptised at the font just inside the door, in the church where he was born a few metres away. The Gothic ambulatory chapels hold fourteenth-century tombs with recumbent effigies, including a nobleman and his wife with their dogs at their feet.

Lisbon Cathedral opening hours and the best time to go

Open daily from morning to early evening, with shorter Sunday hours and closure during mass. The cloister and treasury keep their own schedules and both close earlier than the nave; on some days the cloister is shut entirely for excavation work. June brings the feast of St Anthony, when Alfama fills with grilled sardines and paper decorations and the cathedral hosts a mass wedding of couples from the parish.

Summer afternoons are hot on the walk up. The interior is dim and the rose window reads best in the late afternoon from inside. Dress modestly. Photography without flash is allowed. Allow forty minutes for everything, and continue uphill to the castle or downhill into Alfama, both within a few minutes. Tram 28 is at its emptiest before nine in the morning, which is the one hour when the photograph in front of the cathedral is easy to take.