Why Lisbon makes an easy first cruise call

Ships approaching Lisbon up the Tagus estuary pass beneath the Ponte 25 de Abril, a red suspension bridge that bears a close and entirely deliberate resemblance to San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge; it was built in the 1960s by the same American engineering firm responsible for the Bay Bridge, using much the same design approach, and painted a similar colour more by circumstance than any grand intention. On the hill above the southern bank stands Cristo Rei, a statue of Christ with arms outstretched over the river, built in 1959 in direct homage to Rio de Janeiro's Christ the Redeemer, after a Portuguese cardinal who had visited Brazil returned wanting something similar for Lisbon. The effect, sailing in for the first time, is of arriving somewhere that keeps reminding you, quite intentionally, of somewhere else.

A short sail, not a long flight

For a first cruise, that reminder is doing useful work. Lisbon is one of the more accessible warm-weather destinations from a British port: close enough that a week or two at sea gets you there and most of the way home again without the trip becoming entirely about the journey, and Portugal's Atlantic-facing winters are milder than anywhere on the British mainland, without requiring the long-haul flight that Caribbean or Far Eastern winter sun would. Several sailings combine Lisbon with Cádiz, the river approach to Seville and Gibraltar, giving a first-timer a reasonable sample of southern Iberia's variety, cities, coastline and a genuinely different climate to the one left behind at home, without asking for more than a fortnight. That variety matters for a first trip in particular: it is easier to decide whether the ship, the ports or simply the pace of a sea day suits you when the itinerary is not asking you to judge an entire style of travel from a single stop.

What a first call to Lisbon actually offers

Lisbon rewards a single day well. The historic centre, rebuilt on a strict grid after the 1755 earthquake, sits close to the water and is walkable from most cruise berths; Belém, with its tower and monastery, is a short taxi or tram ride further along the river; and the yellow trams that climb the city's hills are, on a first visit, as much of an attraction as anything they pass. None of it demands specialist knowledge or advance booking to enjoy, which matters more than it might sound for a traveller still working out whether cruising as a way of seeing the world actually suits them. There is no wrong way to spend a first day ashore here: walk from the harbour into the Alfama district's steep lanes, take a tram rather than a taxi simply for the experience of it, or do no more than sit at a café table in one of the grid's wide squares and watch the city go about its ordinary business. A first cruise call works best when it does not feel like homework, and Lisbon rarely does.

Building up from there

A first Iberian cruise need not stop at Lisbon alone. Fred. Olsen's Southern Spain and Portugal Winter Warmth sailing from Southampton adds Seville's river port, Gibraltar and Marbella to the itinerary, a useful next step for anyone who found a short taster cruise enjoyable and wants to know what a longer, more varied one feels like. Andalusia, Portugal with Madeira, sailing from Liverpool, goes further still, adding the mid-Atlantic island as a genuinely different kind of stop within the same fortnight, for anyone ready to graduate from a first short taste to a fuller itinerary.

There is no obligation to decide, on a first trip, whether cruising is for you based on the ship alone. Portugal, reached this easily and offering this much variety of coast and city in a single short itinerary, does a fair amount of the persuading on its own.