The mistake everyone makes in Lisbon is arriving with a car and trying to use it. Leave it at the airport garage or skip the pickup until the day you head for Sintra — Alfama was drawn by donkeys and confirmed by earthquake, and its streets have opinions about your rental's mirrors.
Start instead at Miradouro da Graça with a bica, when the light is still flat and the tour groups are at breakfast. The city tips downhill from there: past São Vicente, under the arches, into the tangle where laundry lines double as bunting and every corner smells of grilled sardines by noon.
Tram 28 does the climbing on your behalf, but the trick is to ride it uphill and walk back down — the route through Alfama to the cathedral loses a hundred metres of altitude and finds three miradouros doing it. Each one hands you the Tagus again from a new angle, wide and silver and completely indifferent to your schedule.
Day two belongs to Graça and Mouraria, the neighbourhoods the postcards skip. Eat where the menu is handwritten and the wine list is a question. By late afternoon you will understand why we said to leave the car: Lisbon is not a city you drive through, it is a city you surrender to on foot.
And when you are ready for the road — Sintra is forty minutes west, the coast road to Cascais glitters the whole way, and that is where the rental finally earns its keep. Pick it up on the way out. Not before.