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This craft beer bar is located below the city’s main railway station, hence its rather suitable name. Actually, we struggled to find it at first, but it’s not in the station itself but in the square below it.

The venue is small and there are usually four or five beers on draft alongside a variety of different bottles. The service was immediate and polite, with the surroundings feeling comfortable.

These used bottles are just for display, but it gives an insight of the sort of beers that have been stocked here. This all adds some colour to the place as otherwise I suspect it might feel just a little dark.

I opted for the Double IPA from Post Scriptum Brewery who are a local micro-brewery. It was perhaps nothing exceptional, but it had pleasant afternotes of grapefruit so was suitably refreshing.

This is the bar’s survey of how many customers were using Untappd and then they split that result into locals and visitors.

There wasn’t any chalk nearby so I didn’t fill in the blackboard survey, but Bev wasn’t having that and so she marked the votes of Steve and I on the board for us. She’s very social and practical like that. This sort of survey result is perhaps self-selecting, but it does give an interesting insight into the number of people using Untappd.

It’s not a sizeable venue with just a couple of large inside tables, but it’s got an informal and inviting vibe to the whole arrangement. Ideal for those waiting for a train and waiting to have some decent beer, with the option to sit outside as well. The bar is using Untappd for its draft and bottled options, which is useful for pre-selecting which looks like the most exciting beer.

Whilst Bev and Susanna were running around Lisbon trying to get value for money from their Lisbon Cards, Steve and I thought it would be far more sensible to go to some bars. He’s very level headed is Steve. AMO is a well-reviewed brewery which also has its own small taproom and was founded in 2016 by Margaret Orlowski.

The beer menu.

There are around four tables upstairs in the taproom which can be reached by some steep steps that require some caution to avoid spilling any drinks. But having some extra jeopardy during a pub visit can’t be a bad thing. There’s some extra seating outside the front of the bar, but smoking is allowed there and I don’t want to drink craft beer in a smoke haze.

This is the brewery’s prickly pear, a 6% fruit beer which had a pleasant taste although I’m not sure what a prickly pear is supposed to taste like as Greggs don’t put anything like that in their baked goods selection.

Also produced by AMO, this is the 8% Winter Special Chocolate Porter, suitably rich with deep chocolate flavours. This is a comforting winter drink, dangerously drinkable.

We were served, I think, by the owner of the brewery and she was friendly, engaging and personable. It was a welcoming and inviting atmosphere, all informal and not too serious. There were a wide range of different beer styles, with the prices being reasonable, and I liked the nature of the surroundings. Given the small size of the venue I was quite surprised by how many beers they had available, if there would have been more time I would have worked through a few more of them.

Steve and I were in charge of choosing the lunchtime restaurant at LX Factory and so we went for Chickinho given it was moderately well reviewed, looked reasonably priced and it sold what looked like delicious chicken. It’s a upstanding and reliable combination to be fair, or the last two at least.

The menu and as an aside it never really occurred to me that free range chickens were much smaller than their standard chicken. I was tempted by chicken wings, but Bev would have sneered at that, so I decided to be somewhat healthier and went for the salad although was inevitably tempted by the whole chicken. There are Nando’s vibes to this menu and indeed this large international chain has strong Portuguese connections

This was decent, the ingredients tasted fresh, the strips of tortilla added texture and the chicken was tender and flavoursome. Not clearly visible but there’s corn in there as well, along with one of my favourites which is avocado. It was suitably filling and didn’t overly rely on lettuce leaves as too many salads in the UK can do. We weren’t very creative as three of us ordered the same thing, with Bev’s burger seemingly being agreeable albeit messy to eat.

The black beer at 2 euros transpired to be Sagres Pretam, a dark lager, and this was suitably drinkable. In the background is the 25 de Abril Bridge which carries cars and lorries on its upper deck and the lower deck is a railway line.

There’s a large inside seating area at the restaurant, but we sat outside to enjoy the Portuguese ambience although I deliberately sat in the shade as the sun was shining just a little too brightly for my liking. The service was efficient and they readily split the bill four ways, which made things much easier. The negative reviews are mostly about the rudeness of the staff rather than the food, but we didn’t experience any problems and the welcome seemed authentically friendly. As a dining option at LX Factory, this seems to be a reliable one and I imagine that many kids would like it.

This was one of Steve’s suggestions based on a visit he had previously made to Lisbon and it transpired to be a very agreeable one. LX Factory is a creative and cultural hub which is located in a former industrial complex. It has been transformed into what is quite a vibrant space that houses numerous shops, restaurants, art galleries, and co-working spaces. With its unique blend of industrial architecture and contemporary design it has become quite a destination for locals and tourists.

There’s a mix of things to do here, including fashion boutiques, vintage shops, bookstores and other creative offerings. The complex also features several restaurants and cafes serving up a variety of cuisine, including traditional Portuguese dishes and international fare. Art enthusiasts can enjoy the many galleries and exhibitions showcasing the work of local and international artists, although Steve and I just went looking for food and drink. It was a hot day and we needed refreshments.

It’s perhaps reached the stage now, in a similar way to Camden Market, where it has become more of a tourist destination rather than the on-trend cultural treat it might once have been. However, there’s still plenty of character here.

The on-site hostel with its street art.

There are a few little structural issues to deal with.

There’s plenty of history to this former industrial site, but I’ll use the words from the official web-site:

“It is in the year of 1846 that the Company of Wiring and Fabricos Lisbonense, one of the most important factory complexes of Lisbon, settles in Alcântara. This industrial area of 23,000m2 was in subsequent years, occupied by the Industrial Company of Portugal and Colonies, Typography Anuário Comercial de Portugal and Gráfica Mirandela. A fraction of a city that has remained hidden for years is now returned to the city in the form of LXFACTORY”.

Its survival is mostly due to the financial crash, as there were plans to demolish it and construct a new development here, but then the money ran out and they never quite did anything with the site. All told, that seems like it’s for the best given what has been created here, but I’m not sure what the long-term plan is.

The area has a laid-back feel to it, very bohemian. There are free toilets which is a handy thing to have and some outlets feel quite rustic, whilst others have clearly had a lot of money spent on their design. It’s certainly worth a visit for an hour or so to explore the various floors, although it is something of a maze to get around.

This grand monument is the Monument of the Discoveries (Padrão dos Descobrimentos) which to me looks newer than it actually is but it was constructed between November 1958 and January 1960. It celebrates the period when Portugal was one of the major political powers in the world, at a time of the Age of Discovery which lasted between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries. There was a time in the late fifteenth century that Portugal controlled to a great degree African and Indian trade, giving it immense amounts of wealth. The precise timing of the completion of this monument in 1960 was to mark the 500th anniversary of the death of Prince Henry the Navigator in 1460, seen to be one of the founding figures of the Age of Discovery.

There’s some considerable detail in the monument and this is Luís de Camões (1524-1580) who is known to be one of the Portugal’s greatest poets.

It’s possible to get close to the figures on the monument and it’s a formidable thing to see from some distance.

And from the other side of the monument, which is no less impressive.