Rossio Train Station reopened in 2008 after 2 years of renovation, so maybe some guidebooks are not up to date. Now you can get to Sintra from the city center without any troubles.

The Central Bus Station has moved recently and not many of the guidebooks have gotten hip to this. Please be careful NOT to go to Saldanha/Arco do Cego. The new station is attached to the Jardim Zoologico metro station, or the Sete Rios commuter rail station.

Public transit. The best deal for getting around town is the “7 Colinas” or Zapping card, which is chargeable by the day or per ride. The card itself costs € 0,50 and each day is € 3,50. These cards will get you on the elevators, funiculars, streetcars, buses and metro. The easiest place to buy them is in the Metro stations or "Casa da Sorte" in front of the Carris Quiosk (now closed) in Praça da Figueira. For commuter trains you have to buy a separate ticket.

Shopping on weekends: Street commerce tends to close Saturday afternoon and not reopen until Monday. In more touristy locations there are some exceptions, but not many. Most Portuguese do their weekend shopping in malls. Three of the biggest ones are Colombo (Colégio Militar metro station), Vasco da Gama (Oriente metro station) and El Corte Ingles (São Sebastião metro station, this one closed on Sundays).
A favorite place for shopping on the street is Avenida Guerra Junqueiro, a noble Avenue built up for the elite during mid twentieth century. Get off the Metro at Alameda and stroll up the hill, surrounded by trees and flower plantings, or go to Rua Augusta, between Rossio and Praça do Comércio. All the major clothes retailers are there and then some. Beats the mall any day!

Hipster shoppers, head to Bairro Alto for all of the latest trends. Tennis shoe shopping is particularly good there. All kinds of design-related objects, trinkets and street-art/wares are for sale in the neighborhood, so take a spin through there during the day as well for some serious shopping.

Museums run by the Government are free on Sunday until 2pm. Gulbenkien museum is free on Sundays

The City Hall organizes free concerts during the summer time. Keep your eyes open for these. A favorite of ours is the Africa Festival, which in 2006 and 2007 was held in July at the Tower of Belém.

For archaeology and architecture enthusiasts, the Millennium Bank headquarters in Lisbon, on the Rua dos Correeiros no. 9, offer a free archaeological tour of the cavernous area under the bank explaining how Pombaline architecture works at the foundation level, and showing ancient Roman villas. Tours run 3-5pm on Thursdays and Saturdays from 9am-1pm and from 3-5pm. Highly recommended!

BERARDO FOUNDATION COLLECTION OF MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY ART is free during 2008

Lunch and dinner schedules: You can normally lunch from 1pm to 3pm, and after that find cafés open willing to serve food. There is no “siesta” here and most businesses remain open all the business day. No need to fear a witching hour when all street commerce closes! Dinner begins at 8pm (although if you’re famished some places will start serving as early as 7pm to cater to tourist tummies). Most restaurants will serve to 10:30 or 11pm. Some even later, especially in Bairro Alto.
For late late late night (early morning) head to the Avenida 24 de Julho, where club goers gather for caldo verde, pão com chouriço and pizza. More shaorma stands had opened up around town (Santos, Praça de Espanha, and Campo Grande) and tend to have very early morning hours.
Vegetarians: Don’t despair! Vegetarian options in Lisbon are growing fast. There are more pizza places, Indian restaurants, and vegetarian-specialized places. (Honestly, we don’t recommend Chinese restaurants here, their vegetarian options are appalling.)

Lisbon is a very safe city, with impressively low levels of violent crime. But please be warned that the pickpockets working the main tourist streetcars have become bolder and bolder. During certain weeks they operate everyday, all day.

Be careful when getting on the streetcar, and if you see that there is some kind of mêlée or confusion at the stop, secure your belongings. If you feel you are a target while in the streetcar, or going to be “squeezed” through a bunch of aggressive people at the back of the streetcar ask for permission to leave through the front of the car. Do not be a victim!

If you do have a problem, please take the time to make a complaint to the Police, the PSP. The Police (PSP) have recently opened a mobile tourist point, where you can ask for advice or report any problems you have had. The officers there are multilingual. It will be rotating in the summertime from Belém to various big tourist areas in the downtown area.

It may look like a simple newsstand. But Zé Carrilho’s kiosk in Rossio, Lisbon’s central square, is one of the best places for tourist information downtown.

Carrilho enchants tourists. He’s friendly, capable, and mostly importantly, very multilingual. He is conversant and helpful in no less than six languages: French and English are from school, Italian from travels there, German from a course at the Goethe Institute, and his Spanish from continued contact with Portugal’s neighbor.

With Carrilho’s language skills and friendly demeanor, along with a pronounced rise in tourism to Lisbon, the business grew over the years. Now, on busy summer days, Carrilho finds himself attending long lines of tourists.

One older customer, a portly, opinionated Lisbonite, says loudly, “This man should receive a medal from City Hall!” But Carrilho says he is not in the business for prestige or glory, merely for the social interaction and for the variety.

To the horror of those who once adopted the "this is Europe, smoker's heaven, anything goes" attitude, more universal rules against smoking in public were implemented early 2008.

Smoking was already banned in certain places, including airports, metro stations, most stores and some offices. Now, 2008, smoking is being banned in all offices and small establishments, like bars and cafes.

From the 1st of January it is not possible to smoke in the premises of less than 100 square meters establishments, but in those of greater size, there can be zones for smokers, as long as they have good ventilation.

Don’t just take our word for it. According to World66 website, Lisbon is “not a city that has a lot of cyber cafes”. So to save you precious time searching, we recommend the Western Union in Praça da Figueira, which charges € 1.25 for half an hour. NetCenter Café on Rua Diário de Notícias, 157 - 159 in Bairro Alto has free internet for those who consume at the bar. Please be warned that the PT Store in Rossio is not recommended, expect longer waits and older hardware and software.

Free wireless networks are possible to find in Lisbon. Some cafés, malls and public gardens have caught on to the idea of free wireless. All national museums in theory offer free wireless but we have had only frustration in attempting to access them, as maintenance is sporadic.