November in Lisbon has a weather all of its own. The light turns from bright gold to soft and silvery, the calçada pavement shines underfoot, and the city retires to the cosiness of four walls. It's a charming time of year. Like the many guests who arrive in the wetter months, we find ourselves drawn to the tascas dotted throughout the city and to long afternoons spent in galleries and museums.
If the rain in Lisbon has rearranged your plans and you're looking for things to do, take this post as an invitation to join us in the Atelier for a silver ring making workshop. An opportunity to make a one-of-a-kind piece with your own hands, and have an experience that'll live longer in the memory than a damp trip to Time Out Market!
We Share the Best Things to Do in Lisbon When It Rains
To help you plan your stay when the forecast has changed, we've put together an essential guide to the best things to do in Lisbon when it rains, written from our Atelier near Avenida de Roma, where Paula has designed and taught jewellery for more than thirty years.
The guide runs from the newly reopened Gulbenkian and a collector's house full of antique clocks to fado in a tiled former chapel. Some of the things you'll find in many Lisbon guides. Some of them are entirely our own.
1. Spend a morning at the Gulbenkian
The Museu Calouste Gulbenkian is the place to begin a wet day. Its collection travels from ancient Egypt to the twentieth century, and for anyone who loves jewellery, the room devoted to René Lalique is reason enough to go. The Founder's Collection reopened in July 2026 after a long renovation, and the Lalique Room has been fully restored. Look closely at how he worked enamel, horn and glass into dragonflies and wisteria. Then step out into the gardens when the rain eases, and embrace the fresh fragrance post-downpour brings.
2. Make your own silver ring
A rainy afternoon is the ideal moment to do something with your hands. In our silver ring workshop, you'll join Paula at the bench for three hours, shaping, filing and finishing a ring in sterling silver from start to end. Groups are kept small, so Paula can work alongside each creator, guiding them through every stage. Complete beginners are warmly welcome.
You'll learn traditional techniques with professional tools, at your own pace, while the weather does what it likes outside. Sessions run on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 2pm or 6pm, taught in English or Portuguese. You'll leave with a ring you shaped yourself, and a story to go with it every time you wear it.
3. Step into a collector's home at the Casa-Museu Medeiros e Almeida
On Rua Rosa Araújo, a short walk from Avenida da Liberdade, the businessman António Medeiros e Almeida turned his own house into a museum, and it remains one of Lisbon's best-kept secrets. Room after room holds what he gathered over a lifetime: one of Portugal's most important collections of clocks and watches, Chinese porcelain, Portuguese and English silver, painted fans and jewellery. The Guardian once counted it among Europe's best museums that most visitors have never heard of. On a grey afternoon, the chandeliers and gilt mirrors do the work of sunshine. Plan your visit
Photo: Redpill 87, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
4. See tiles where they were laid at the Palácio dos Condes da Calheta
The National Tile Museum is closed for renovation, so its curators have taken the tiles to the people. Their Open Azulejo project opens up buildings where historic tile panels survive in their original place, beginning with the Palácio dos Condes da Calheta inside the Jardim Botânico Tropical in Belém. It's open Tuesday to Sunday from 10am to 5pm, and when the showers pass, the garden around it is a lovely place to walk.
5. Explore all eight floors of MUDE
Lisbon's design and fashion museum reopened in 2024 after eight years of works, inside the former headquarters of the Banco Nacional Ultramarino on Rua Augusta. You can now wander every floor of the building, from the old vault of rental safes to the rooftop, with Baixa laid out below you and the river at the end of the street. The collection began with Francisco Capelo's design and fashion archive, and the building itself is half the experience. Visit MUDE
6. Browse Portuguese design at Embaixada
In Príncipe Real, the Palacete Ribeiro da Cunha, a nineteenth-century neo-Moorish palace, now houses Embaixada, a gallery of shops given over to Portuguese brands and designers. Climb the stone staircase, wander from room to room, find a gift made in Portugal, then settle into the courtyard bar for a drink while the rain falls on the square outside.
7. Lose an afternoon at LX Factory
This former industrial complex in Alcântara is now a covered warren of studios, shops and restaurants, and it shelters you well on a wet day. Make time for Ler Devagar, a bookshop built into an old printing hall, with shelves climbing towards the ceiling and an iconic bicycle suspended overhead.
8. Catch a classic at the Cinemateca Portuguesa
Portugal's national film archive on Rua Barata Salgueiro screens films from its collection six days a week, many in their original language with Portuguese subtitles. Come early to see the small cinema museum and bookshop, then eat at 39 Degraus, its café-restaurant, named after Hitchcock's The 39 Steps. Check the programme before you go and pick a retrospective.
9. Read in a palace at the Biblioteca Palácio Galveias
A short walk from our Atelier you'll find a seventeenth-century palace that was once a country house of the Távora family. It has been a municipal library since 1931, and José Saramago remembered it as the place that opened up the world to him as a young reader. Anyone can come in, take a seat by a tall window and lose an hour among the books, and the garden is lovely once the showers pass. Opening hours
Photo: Thomas from Vienna, Austria, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
10. Hear fado in a former chapel
Rain and fado belong together. For the prettiest room in the city, book a table at Mesa de Frades on Rua dos Remédios in Alfama, a former chapel still lined with its original blue and white azulejos beneath a vaulted ceiling. There are only a handful of tables, dinner comes first, and when the singers begin, the whole room falls hushed. Book ahead, especially at weekends.
11. Settle into a pastelaria
Sometimes the best response to Lisbon rain is a window seat, a bica (an espresso) and something warm from the oven. Every neighbourhood has its pastelaria, and the ones around Avenida de Roma and Alvalade are always full of locals reading the paper or watching the world go by.
Lisbon's cafés are made for lingering and are ideal spots to relax in following your ring making workshop. Our favourite is Pastelaria Mexicana on Avenida Guerra Junqueiro, a neighbourhood institution since the 1940s and one of the city's officially recognised Lojas com História. Order something from the long counter of house-made cakes and take your time over the mid-century interior.
12. For families: the Oceanário and Parque das Nações
If you're travelling with children, the Oceanário de Lisboa in Parque das Nações is the classic rainy-day choice, with one vast central tank you can circle at every level. Next door, the Pavilhão do Conhecimento is a hands-on science centre built for Expo '98, and the Vasco da Gama shopping centre beside Oriente station has plenty of places to eat, shop and dry off. If the rain lifts, ride the Telecabine Lisboa, the cable car that glides 1,230 metres along the Tagus, 30 metres above the water.
And when the sun comes back
Lisbon rain rarely stays long. When it clears, the city looks freshly washed and the light comes back sharper than before. If you spent the afternoon at our bench, you'll carry a piece of that rainy day with you on your hand, a ring that is entirely yours, with no two exactly alike.
Discover our jewellery workshops or, if you'd rather give the experience to someone else, explore the Workshop Gift Voucher.
