What is the Lisbon outdoor escape game?
The Lisbon outdoor escape game takes the escape room idea into the streets of the Baixa, Bairro Alto and Chiado: 10 landmarks, one puzzle at each, and a phone in your hand instead of a locked door. Expect about 2 hours, 49 minutes of them walking, with 3.6 km covered and the starting day entirely up to you.
The city does half the work: wavy pavement on Rossio, the terraces of the Miradouro de São Pedro de Alcântara, the plain front of the Church of São Roque, the São Carlos opera house and the arcades of Praça do Comércio all give you something to examine. Because the puzzles are independent rather than chapters in a story, you can hand one to a friend and move on, and up to three levels of hints are waiting if a clue will not fall into place.
- Durationabout 2 hours
- Walkingabout 49 min · 3.6 km
- Stops10
- LanguagesEnglish, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese
What you do on the escape game
Work it out
Every landmark comes with its own puzzle, answered by looking around and thinking it through. No prior knowledge needed.
Notice things
Pavement patterns, statues, theatre facades and tiled walls carry the clues you need.
Climb and walk
Lisbon is hilly: 49 minutes of walking and 3.6 km in total, with Google Maps showing the way between puzzles.
Pause freely
There is no countdown, so stop for a coffee and a pastel de nata and continue later or on another day.
See the route and attractions →
How it works
- Book online Choose the number of players. Your booking reference arrives by email straight away.
- Get the app Download the World City Trail app from the App Store or Google Play and enter your booking reference.
- Play when you like Start whenever you are ready, walk at your own pace and pause any time. No guide, no fixed schedule.
Who it suits
Friends
Different heads spot different details, which is what makes the arguing between stops worthwhile.
Couples
A shared puzzle beats a guided group, and the climbs come with viewpoints to catch your breath on.
Team building
Teams of up to 5, each player on their own phone, so colleagues can run several teams over the same route.
Good to know
- Bring a charged smartphone with mobile data; a power bank helps.
- Best started in daylight, so you can see the details the puzzles ask about.
- No entry tickets needed: everything happens outside the buildings. Going inside is optional and paid separately.
- Family friendly; children must be accompanied by an adult.
- Not suitable for wheelchair users and difficult with strollers.
- Teams of up to 5 work best; bigger groups split into several teams, one ticket per player.
- Every purchase helps support stray cats and dogs in Greece.
Puzzle route: from Rossio to Lisbon Cathedral
10 stops · about 49 min walking · start: Rossio Square · finish: Lisbon Cathedral
Rossio, officially Praça Dom Pedro IV, holds the opening puzzle, and the last one belongs to Lisbon Cathedral on its hill. On the way the route calls at the Foz Palace on Praça dos Restauradores, climbs to the Miradouro de São Pedro de Alcântara, turns to the Church of São Roque and the Teatro da Trindade, crosses Praça Luís de Camões, stops at the Teatro Nacional de São Carlos, drops to Praça do Comércio beside the Tagus and reaches the Church of Saint Anthony on the way up. Begin in daylight, since the clues are all outdoors. Google Maps takes care of the route, the app allows a different order, and no entry tickets are needed.
Open the route map ↗
1Rossio SquareStart
Rossio, officially Praça Dom Pedro IV, has been one of Lisbon's main squares since the Middle Ages. Its wavy black-and-white cobblestones are a well-known example of Portuguese pavement, and the column in the middle carries a statue of King Pedro IV. On the north side stands the National Theatre Dona Maria II.
Read the full story →
2Foz Palace
This palace on Praça dos Restauradores dates from the late 18th century and takes its name from the Marquis of Foz, who bought it in the late 19th century and had its rooms lavishly redecorated. In front of it rises the obelisk that commemorates the restoration of Portuguese independence in 1640.
Read the full story →
3Miradouro de São Pedro de Alcântara
This garden viewpoint on the edge of the Bairro Alto was laid out in the 19th century on two terraced levels. It looks across the Baixa to São Jorge Castle and the Graça district on the opposite hill, and it is one of the city's best-known places to watch the sunset.
4Church of São Roque
The Jesuits built this church in the 16th century behind a plain façade, on the site of a shrine to Saint Roch, the protector against plague. Inside, the Chapel of Saint John the Baptist was made in Rome between 1742 and 1747 for King John V, blessed by the pope and shipped to Lisbon in pieces.
5Teatro da Trindade
The Teatro da Trindade opened in 1867 in the Chiado district and is one of the oldest theatres in Lisbon still in use. Today it belongs to the INATEL foundation, which is why that name appears next to it.
6Praça Luís de Camões
This square between Chiado and Bairro Alto is named after Luís de Camões, the 16th-century author of the epic poem The Lusiads. His bronze statue, unveiled in 1867, is surrounded by eight smaller figures of Portuguese writers and chroniclers.
Read the full story →
7Teatro Nacional de São Carlos
Lisbon's opera house opened in 1793, built after the 1755 earthquake with money from the city's merchants to designs by José da Costa e Silva, modelled on Italian theatres such as the San Carlo in Naples. It is named after Princess Carlota Joaquina. The poet Fernando Pessoa was born in 1888 in a building on the square in front.
8Praça do Comércio
Until the earthquake of 1755 the royal palace stood on this riverside square, which is why locals still call it Terreiro do Paço. The Marquis of Pombal had it rebuilt with arcaded buildings open to the Tagus, and in the middle stands the equestrian statue of King José I, unveiled in 1775.
9Church of Saint Anthony
According to tradition, this church stands on the spot where Saint Anthony, known abroad as Saint Anthony of Padua, was born in Lisbon in the late 12th century. It was rebuilt after the earthquake of 1755, and a small crypt marks the room where he is said to have been born. Every June the city celebrates him with street festivals.
Read the full story →
10Lisbon CathedralFinish
Lisbon Cathedral was begun soon after 1147, when King Afonso Henriques took the city from the Moors, and it is one of the oldest churches in the city. Its two towers and battlements give it the look of a Romanesque fortress, with a large rose window between them.
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Tanya Deans (verified owner) –
We did the World City Trail Lisbon – Escape Game. We did this tour with our two teen boys (15 & 18), who enjoyed this much more than the traditional walking tour we did on our last visit to Lisbon a few years ago. We visited 10 points of interest around the city, places you would definitely visit on other walking tours. So I wouldn’t do this trail and another walking tour on the same visit.
The boys enjoyed solving the puzzles, which were relatively easy to solve but fun. After you solve the puzzle, you get a Google map point for the next location, which is easy to follow. This is better than other puzzle trails we’ve done, where we have to do a lot of guessing to find the next clue location.
It’s a lot of walking (about 4km), so best with older kids. It took us about 2 hours to complete.
The historical info about each destination is interesting and concise, and thankfully easy to skim quickly as my kids wanted to hurry to the next destination.
Tips:
– I suggest taking public transport to the starting point (which is on a hill). We walked there from our hotel and ended up walking some of the same streets we later walked on the tour, which seemed like a waste.
– You only need a ticket for each phone you want to use the app on. After buying the tickets, you get a separate activation code for each ticket you purchased. You install the mobile app on each phone and enter one of the activation codes on each phone.
It’s more fun if each person has a phone, so you can each separately look at the puzzles and clues on your own phone (our group was competitive and tried to solve the puzzles before each other). But if you have a child without a phone, they don’t need a ticket, they can just look at the parent’s phone.
– Each phone needs mobile data during the tour for it to work. So if only one person if your group has a data plan in Portugal (the case for many travelers), they will need to hotspot the rest of the group.
– Make sure all the phones are fully charged and bring portable chargers. Our batteries drained quickly since the phones were basically on during the whole 2 hours and we were using apps like google maps to navigate.
Overall we liked it and would probably try World City Trails in other cities.