Is the 28E Worth the Queue? Lisbon's Yellow Tram, Honestly

The 28E is a little over seven kilometres of single track from the foot of the castle hill to the Prazeres cemetery in Campo de Ourique, and the reason it survives is the reason it is worth riding: the streets of Graça and Alfama are too narrow, too steep and too tightly curved for a bus or a modern tram, so Carris keeps 1930s Remodelado cars on them, rebuilt in the 1990s with new motors and brakes inside the old wooden bodies. On Rua das Escolas Gerais the car passes within arm's reach of the doorways. Nothing else in the city gives you that, and nothing else gives it to you sitting down for the price of a bus.

The stretch everyone photographs is the eastern third — up from Martim Moniz through Graça, along the ridge past the São Vicente church and the National Pantheon, down past the Portas do Sol and Santa Luzia viewpoints, past the Sé and into the Baixa. After Rua da Conceição it is a handsome but ordinary tram ride up to Chiado, along the edge of Bairro Alto and out to Estrela. The route page walks it stop by stop; what matters here is that the part worth queuing for is twenty minutes long, and the rest is transport.

What is special about it, and what is not

Special: the cars, the gradient, the streets, and the fact that it is a working bus route rather than a heritage ride — residents get on with shopping at Graça and off at the Sé, which is the thing tourist trams elsewhere have lost. Not special: the view from a full car. The windows are small, the standing passengers block them, and on a car loaded to capacity by the marshal at the terminus you will see the ceiling and the strap.

The whole case for riding early is that the special part only exists with a seat.

Pay the driver and the ride is €3.30 (about $3.85), valid only in the vehicle where you bought it — get off at Portas do Sol to look at the view and the next car costs €3.30 again. Buy a navegante occasional card for €0.50 at any metro station machine, load it with zapping credit in amounts from €3 to €40, and the same ride is €1.72 (about $2), or €1.90 as a single ticket valid for 60 minutes across Carris and the metro. Load a 24-hour pass instead for €7.25 (about $8.50) and every Carris tram and bus and the whole metro are covered for the day; €11.40 adds the CP trains to Sintra and Cascais. None of the 24-hour passes includes the funiculars or the Santa Justa lift, which are closed anyway. Tap the card on the validator inside the door at every boarding; a card with credit and no tap is a fine.

The Lisboa Card includes unlimited Carris and metro for its 24, 48 or 72 hours, so for a card-holder the tram is free and the queue is the only cost. Children under four travel free. Cash is not accepted on the articulated cars numbered 501–505, 507, 510 and 601–615 — those run the 15E to Belém rather than the 28E, but contactless, MB Way and the Via Verde app work on all of them.

Carris' route page for the 28E, read on 29 August 2026, was showing its August timetable: first departure 06:45 and last departure 22:30 from the eastern end, roughly every 10 to 15 minutes between 07:00 and 19:00 and less often early and late. The page also carried a route-alteration notice covering the 12E and 28E, and the timetable it showed ran from Graça rather than Martim Moniz — so in August 2026 the eastern terminus, and the queue, had moved a stop up the hill. Check the page on the day, because the square you have been told to queue in may be the wrong one. Carris prints no journey time; guides put the end-to-end ride at 45 to 60 minutes depending on traffic and double-parked cars.

The queue is the tram's real timetable, and it runs on the coach and cruise-ship clock rather than on Carris'. Before 09:00 you walk on and choose a seat. From about 10:00 to 18:00 in the season there is a line round the terminus and a Carris marshal loading each car to standing capacity; forty minutes' wait is normal and an hour is not rare. After 19:00 the light on Alfama is better than at noon and the car is half empty. The last cars after 22:00 are nearly local. None of those wait times is a Carris figure — Carris publishes none — but they are consistent across the guides we read and the reviews on the tour cards below.

Is it better to ride early?

Yes, and not only for the seat. The 07:30 car from the eastern terminus to Portas do Sol puts you at the castle gate for its 09:00 opening with the ride already done and nobody on it; Alfama, the Sé and the Baixa are then all downhill from you. Ride it once as transport in the morning and once more, if you want the photographs, in the evening after 19:00.

Never plan the ride for the middle of the day unless you have bought a seat.

The 28E is the most-worked line in the city by pickpockets, who board with the crowd at the terminus and work the crush at the Sé and Portas do Sol stops where people push to get off. Phones from back pockets and wallets from open bags are the standard losses. The fix is dull and it works: front pocket, zipped bag worn in front of you, nothing in a jacket hung over your arm, and a seat rather than a standing place if you can get one — which is one more argument for the early car.

Carris says nothing about it on its route page; the guides say the same thing every year. If it happens, the PSP tourist police station is in the Palácio Foz on Praça dos Restauradores, telephone +351 213 421 623, and 112 is the emergency number; the safety page has the report procedure and what your insurer will ask for.

Read the last column first. The 12E carries the same cars through the same hill for the same fare and had cars roughly every 37 minutes in August, which is its only weakness — miss one and the wait is half the 28E's. The 24E is the quiet one and it does not touch Alfama at all.

The 12 or the 28?

For the view, the 12E. It leaves from the same square, climbs the same streets to Portas do Sol and Santa Luzia and comes down past the Sé, and it is a loop, so you end where you started. What it lacks is the western half of the 28E's route — Chiado, Bairro Alto, Estrela — and frequency. If you want the whole line end to end, or you are using the tram as transport across the city, ride the 28E early. If you want the twenty minutes of Alfama that the photographs are of and it is already noon, the 12E is the better answer.

One more thing the guides used to recommend and cannot now: the Glória, Bica and Lavra funiculars and the Santa Justa lift have all been closed since the Glória derailment on 3 September 2025, with replacement buses 51E, 22B and 19B and no reopening date on carris.pt when we checked. They used to absorb some of the crowd that wanted a heritage ride; that crowd is now in the 28E's queue.

Use it once, early, as transport. The first cars from the eastern end leave at 06:45; a car at 07:30 puts you at Portas do Sol with the city still asleep, and from there the castle, Alfama, the Sé and the Baixa are a downhill walk in that order. The tram would only carry you past the things you came up the hill to see. Ride it a second time in the evening if you want the photographs: the light on Alfama after 19:00 is the light in every picture of the 28E, and the cars are half empty.

On a day with the Lisboa Card both rides cost nothing; on a day without, load a navegante card at the metro before the first ride and the whole day's trams and metro run under €8. The one-day itinerary starts with exactly this ride, and the getting around page has the rest of the network, the night buses and what the strikes rule means for a planned morning.