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Halloween and All Saints’ Day weekend is a treat for classical music fans: a new Carmen in Belém, André Rieu at the arena and free concerts under the dome of the National Pantheon. On Sunday, José González opens Misty Fest with a night for one voice and a guitar.
Lisbon and around
André Rieu and the Johann Strauss Orchestra
📅 30 & 31 October, 20:00
📍 MEO Arena, Parque das Nações
💸 €50–140
The violinist from Maastricht long ago turned the symphony concert into a mass-market show. His Johann Strauss Orchestra plays waltzes, operetta, arias and crowd-pleasers in full stage sets, while the audience sings along and dances in the aisles. Rieu fills arenas worldwide, and all his Lisbon shows in 2024 sold out. It runs about three hours; ages 6+. Go if you want classical music with no dress code and no fear of clapping at the wrong moment, because here everyone claps all the time.
André Rieu and pan flautist Michel Tirabosco performing with the Johann Strauss Orchestra.
José González, Misty Fest opening night
📅 1 November, 21:00
📍 Coliseu dos Recreios, Restauradores
💸 Tickets
The Gothenburg singer-songwriter, son of Argentine émigrés, became known worldwide for his acoustic cover of The Knife’s “Heartbeats”: with one classical guitar, the song turned quieter and sadder than the original. He also fronts the band Junip. In March he released “Against the Dying of the Light”, his first album in five years, and that’s what he brings to Lisbon. The show opens the 17th Misty Fest, an autumn series of intimate concerts in Lisbon and Porto. It’s a rare night when the big Coliseu falls silent for one man and a guitar.
Bizet’s Carmen
📅 30 October, 20:00; 1 November, 17:00
📍 CCB, Grande Auditório, Belém
💸 €35–75
With the Teatro Nacional de São Carlos closed for renovation, its opera season has moved to the Belém Cultural Centre. This is a new production directed by Francisco López, with Italian conductor Antonio Pirolli leading the Portuguese Symphony Orchestra and the theatre’s chorus. Georgian mezzo-soprano Ketevan Kemoklidze sings Carmen, tenor José de Eça is Don José and baritone Gustavo Castillo is Escamillo. Even people who’ve never been to the opera know the story of the cigarette-factory girl, the soldier and the bullfighter, and recognise the Habanera from the first bars. Sung in French with Portuguese surtitles; a short introductory talk starts 30 minutes before curtain. A good first opera, and a reason to spend the holiday Sunday in Belém.
Sons pela Cidade (Sounds Around the City)
📅 30 October, 21:00; 31 October, 21:00; 1 November, 17:00
📍 Pavilhão de Portugal, Parque das Nações; Igreja do Sagrado Coração de Jesus, Marquês de Pombal; Igreja de Santa Engrácia (National Pantheon), Alfama
💸 Free · 31 Oct · 1 Nov
Metropolitana’s soloists play chamber music in unusual buildings on three consecutive evenings. Friday is Martinů, the Czech who wrote in 1920s Paris under the spell of jazz. The programme includes his jazz ballet “La Revue de Cuisine”, about a romance between a pot and a whisk, played in Álvaro Siza’s Expo 98 pavilion with its sagging concrete canopy. Saturday, in the modernist Sacred Heart church, brings Bach’s Goldberg Aria, Schnittke’s String Trio and a Beethoven quartet. On Sunday, under the dome of Santa Engrácia, flute, viola and harp play Debussy and the Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu in a programme called “Contemplativo”. Entry is free, so arrive early.
Tim Kliphuis Trio
📅 30 October, 21:00
📍 Fábrica Braço de Prata, Marvila
💸 Tickets
The Dutch violinist plays jazz manouche, the gypsy swing that guitarist Django Reinhardt and violinist Stéphane Grappelli invented in the 1930s. He’s joined by Portuguese musicians Nuno Marinho and Miguel Falcão. It’s part of Festival Django Portugal, and the next night the trio plays Coimbra’s Salão Brazil jazz club. Fast, light and very danceable music that makes sitting still difficult. Fábrica Braço de Prata is a former arms factory turned bookshop, bar and cluster of concert rooms.
Quiet Light
📅 30 October, doors 21:00
📍 Casa Capitão, Beato
💸 from €16.50
Quiet Light is the project of Austin, Texas singer and producer Riya Mahesh. She makes hushed folktronica: acoustic songs wrapped in ambient and electronics, music for headphones and late nights. Her second mixtape, “Blue Angel Sparkling Silver 2”, came out this year on New York label True Panther. This is her first Lisbon show. For anyone who finds new names on playlists and wants to hear them while they still play small rooms.
Sverre Sæbø Quintet
📅 30 October, workshop 19:00, concert 21:00
📍 Cascais Jazz Club, Cascais
💸 Tickets
A quintet led by double bassist and composer Sverre Sæbø from Norway’s west coast. The line-up has two saxophones (Heidi Kvelvane and Aksel Røed), Andreas Hatzikiriakidis on trumpet and Amund Nordstrøm on drums. Their debut album came out in 2025. They cite trumpeter Don Cherry and bassist Charles Mingus as touchstones and have played the Kongsberg and Oslo jazz festivals. Before the concert there’s an open workshop on how American jazz shaped European composers. Cascais Jazz Club is a small room in the town centre, handy if you live along the Cascais line.
Not Your Halloween
📅 31 October, from 20:00
📍 República da Música, Alvalade
💸 €20–25
Halloween for people who like their guitars heavy. Lisbon metalcore band Hills Have Eyes headline, with Bad Tomato and CX opening. After midnight the NYS party takes over with DJs Blasphemo and Rockline plus Baile Emo, a night of 2000s emo and pop-punk. The organisers promise an alternative to commercial Halloween parties and a crowd dressed in black.
Porto and around
Mucho Flow 2026
📅 30–31 October
📍 Teatro Jordão, Centro Cultural Vila Flor, São Mamede CAE, Guimarães
💸 €20–40
A small festival of indie, electronic and experimental music in medieval Guimarães. On Friday at Teatro Jordão, Texan singer-songwriter Jana Horn and American folk singer Hannah Frances perform. At midnight at Vila Flor, Dutch producer upsammy joins Italian drummer Valentina Magaletti, who plays with electronic artists the way others jam with jazz musicians. Later, American DJ Nikki Nair plays the São Mamede club. Saturday’s club night at São Mamede opens with British producer 96 Back. A Friday day ticket is €40, and the Friday and Saturday club nights are €20 each. About 50 minutes from Porto by car, an hour by train.
Schubert & Strauss
📅 30 October, 21:00
📍 Casa da Música, Sala Suggia, Boavista
💸 €26–30
The Porto Symphony Orchestra performs with its music director, Spaniard Lucas Macías, who conducts and plays the oboe solo. From Richard Strauss come his early Serenade for winds and the Oboe Concerto he wrote in 1945, late in life. From Schubert come the “Unfinished” Symphony and music from “Rosamunde”. The main hall sits inside Rem Koolhaas’s building, which looks like a faceted concrete boulder. A rare chance to see a conductor holding an instrument.
De Profundis
📅 1 November, 18:00
📍 Casa da Música, Boavista
💸 €22
The Casa da Música Choir, led by French conductor Léo Warynski, sings settings of Psalm 130, traditionally read in memory of the dead. The programme:
- De Profundis by Estonian Arvo Pärt;
- De Profundis by Portuguese composer António Pinho Vargas;
- Mendelssohn’s “Aus tiefer Not”;
- “Psaume 130” by Frenchman Philippe Hersant;
- “Abendlied” by the 19th-century Liechtenstein romantic Rheinberger.
It falls on All Saints’ Day, when Portuguese families visit cemeteries. An hour with no instruments, only voices.
Microvolumes 4.90
📅 31 October, 18:30–22:00
📍 Sonoscopia, Rua de Silva Porto 217, Paranhos
💸 €6
Sonoscopia is Porto’s non-profit home for experimental music, and Microvolumes is its improvisation series. Five musicians play:
- Mauro Basilio (electroacoustics);
- trumpeter Luís Vicente;
- guitarist Marcelo dos Reis;
- Catalan drummer Vasco Trilla (he and Vicente released the duo album “Ghost Strata” this year);
- Carlos “Zíngaro”, a violinist playing free improvisation since the 1970s.
Dinner is included in the €6, with no online sales. For those ready for music without melodies or choruses.
Dance
Halloween is the big club night of the autumn, and Lisbon is ready for it: techno in a tiled pavilion, house under the arcades of Praça do Comércio, sunrise over the Tagus at Lux. The north has its own heavy hitters, with Freddy K and DJ Vibe in Porto and a fourteen-hour DJ Rush marathon on the Spanish border.
Lisbon
Brunch Electronik Lisboa: Halloween Special
📅 30 October, 22:00–06:00
📍 Pavilhão Carlos Lopes, Parque Eduardo VII
💸 Tickets
Barcelona’s Brunch Electronik throws its Halloween night in the Carlos Lopes pavilion, a tile-clad building made for the 1922 Rio de Janeiro exhibition and later moved to Lisbon. The headliner is Naples’ Deborah De Luca, who plays Europe’s big techno festivals and runs the Sola_mente label. With her are Kyiv’s Daria Kolosova, known for fast, hard techno, and Berlin-based Spaniard Héctor Oaks, who plays marathon vinyl sets and runs the OAKS label; BETIX opens. Strictly 18+ with ID checks, and tickets are sold only via Xceed, RA and Ticketline. This Friday’s loudest techno.
Halloween at Lux Frágil
📅 31 October, 23:00–06:00
📍 Lux Frágil, Santa Apolónia
💸 Tickets
Lisbon’s key club since 1998 sits on the waterfront opposite Santa Apolónia station, with a terrace over the Tagus. Downstairs are Australian duo OK EG (experimental electronics and sound design), Francisco Berberan with a selection of 90s rave, house and techno, and resident Inês Duarte. Upstairs in the bar it’s the Lisbon scene: Nídia from the Príncipe label (batida and kuduro pushed toward the experimental), DJ Narciso, and Maki, who mixes Brazilian rhythms with bass-heavy club music. Go for a Halloween without the mass-market trimmings and with the river at dawn.
Lux Frágil — Lisbon’s iconic nightclub on the banks of the Tagus River, near Santa Apolónia station.
Bloom presents Monkey Project: Halloween
📅 31 October, 16:00–04:00
📍 Pátio da Galé, Praça do Comércio
💸 €22.75–56.80
Monkey Project builds parties around set design in unusual places. This time it’s the courtyard under the arcades of Lisbon’s grand riverside square. The headliner is Brazilian producer Antdot (house and tech house), with French duo Notre Dame and house DJs Parallelle, Charmeine, People Like Us and SHIA. It starts at 4pm, so you can arrive in daylight and stay by the river into the night. Prices rise as tickets sell.
Pieces Chess Club: Halloween Special
📅 30 October, 18:00–02:00
📍 Beato 30, Beato
💸 Free
Pieces Chess Club combines chess and parties: people play at the boards with DJs right beside them, and within a couple of years it’s become a fixture for young Lisbon. All levels welcome. This Halloween has an anime theme, with Brazilian baile funk and electronics. DJ Travella from the Príncipe label leads a line-up of eight DJs. Entry is free; donations go to Vida Justa, a group supporting residents of the city’s poorer neighbourhoods. A good Friday option if you know how a knight moves or are willing to learn.
Afro Encircle: Halloween Edition
📅 31 October, 23:00–06:00
📍 Village Underground, Alcântara
💸 €12
A night of African and Caribbean rhythms:
- afrobeats;
- amapiano (South African house);
- shatta (Martinique-born dancehall);
- dancehall;
- batida.
It’s held in a club made of shipping containers and old buses beneath the 25 de Abril bridge, with a crew of seven Lisbon DJs. Go if you’d rather dance to vocals than to techno.
Gala Vralloween × Tropicana
📅 31 October, 22:00–03:00
📍 Palácio Chiado, Rua do Alecrim 70, Chiado
💸 €40
A Halloween ball by the GALA collective and Tropicana Records in an 18th-century palace, now home to restaurants and bars under painted ceilings. DJs Venga Venga, C4STRO and VICKY P play. The dark-glamour dress code is enforced: black, velvet, lace and evening make-up. For those who want Halloween elegant rather than gory.
Alive at Carmo Rooftop
📅 1 November, 16:00–23:00
📍 Carmo Rooftop, Largo do Carmo 11, Chiado
💸 Free
End the holiday Sunday on a terrace beside the ruined Carmo convent, overlooking the Baixa. Promoter Bungee brings Portuguese DJ ALIVE, Brazilian Eric Furtado and Rui Alves with slow, deep house, plus food and a bar. A gentle finale to the long weekend, at sunset rather than in the dark.
Porto and around
Halloween Switch: DJ Vibe, MXGPU
📅 31 October, 22:00–08:00
📍 Switch, Rua de Júlio Dinis 766, Porto
💸 from €10
Ten hours straight. The night is led by DJ Vibe, a veteran of Portuguese house: in the 90s, as one half of Underground Sound of Lisbon, he released “So Get Up”, which became an international club hit. With him is MXGPU, a joint project of Moullinex (Lisbon producer and founder of the Discotexas label) and electronic artist GPU Panic, playing a hybrid live set. Tickets are limited.
Fold: Freddy K, Voicedrone, Amulador
📅 30 October, 23:00–06:00
📍 Gare Porto, Rua da Madeira 182, by São Bento station
💸 from €20
Friday techno at Gare Porto, the city’s main techno club, hidden in old warehouses along the São Bento tracks. The headliner is Rome’s Freddy K, who has been playing since the mid-80s, runs KEY Vinyl and is known for fast, raw, long sets. Voicedrone and Amulador also play. For classic heavy techno without the Halloween props.
Halloween: Toy Tonics Jam
📅 31 October, 23:59–06:00
📍 Pérola Negra, Rua de Gonçalo Cristóvão 284, Porto
💸 from €10
Toy Tonics is a Berlin label known for live-feel house and indie disco, where many artists are musicians as well as DJs. Arpy Brown and Gee Lane, both from its roster, come to Porto. Pérola Negra is a former cabaret in the centre that’s become one of the city’s favourite house clubs. Costumes encouraged.
Bloom & Maz Halloween
📅 31 October, 16:00–04:00
📍 The Baron’s Hall, Quinta dos Barões, Vila Nova de Gaia
💸 from €15
Bloom’s Halloween in a hall belonging to The Fladgate Partnership (the Taylor’s port group) on the Gaia bank of the Douro. The headliner is Brazilian Maz, a notable producer of melodic afro house; the rest of the line-up hasn’t been announced. For fans of big production shows who like to start early.
HallowQueer “KHORROREEE!”
📅 30 October, 23:59–05:00
📍 FBAUP (Faculty of Fine Arts), Av. Rodrigues de Freitas 265, Porto
💸 €2
A queer Halloween from Porto Inclusive and the University of Porto’s fine-arts students’ association. TRASGO play live at 00:30, then DJs ICAROMAC, SUCATA and DILLITZER from 02:00. Entry €2, free for FBAUP students, no online sales. You won’t find a cheaper night in the city, and the costumes tend to be wilder than anywhere else.
Further afield
Halloween: From Midnight to Madness
📅 31 October, 00:00 – 1 November, 14:00
📍 Inguz Club, Mazedo (Monção)
💸 Tickets
A fourteen-hour techno marathon in a club right on the Spanish border that also draws crowds from Galicia. The headliner is Chicago’s DJ Rush, who has played hard, fast techno with gravelly vocals since the 90s. Temudo, Antonio De Angelis, Jan Krøw and about ten more DJs join him, plus a live set from Pre Silent. Doors 23:30, 18+. Only for those ready for a night and half the next day.
Watch
Seinfeld plays Portugal for the first time, two nights in a row: with friends at the Coliseu and solo at MEO Arena. If you can’t get in, there’s Joana Vasconcelos meets Valentino at MAAT and the Mexican Day of the Dead in Restelo. In Porto, it’s the last day of a collection with Goya and Hirst at Serralves.
Lisbon and around
Jerry Seinfeld
📅 31 October — “Jerry Seinfeld & His Best Friends”; 1 November, 21:30 — solo show
📍 Coliseu dos Recreios (31 Oct); MEO Arena, Parque das Nações (1 Nov)
💸 Tickets for 31 Oct · €67–247 for 1 Nov
Seinfeld’s first shows in Portugal. He co-created (with Larry David) and starred in “Seinfeld” (1989–1998) and hosts “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee”. On Saturday at the Coliseu he brings friends:
- Jim Gaffigan — jokes about food, laziness and big families, several Grammy nominations;
- Tom Papa — Netflix specials;
- George Wallace — a stand-up veteran with a long Las Vegas residency.
Sunday’s solo night at MEO Arena was nearly sold out by late September. Both shows are in English. They’re part of the new MEO Commedia à La Carte Fest; in September several Portuguese artists pulled out of the festival over Seinfeld’s pro-Israel statements.
Jerry Seinfeld performing stand-up comedy.
MAAT: VENUS and Life Is the Game
📅 Daily except Tuesday, 10:00–19:00; VENUS until 22 February, Life Is the Game until 15 February
📍 MAAT, Belém
💸 €12–16
For its 10th anniversary the museum has opened two major shows. In “VENUS”, Joana Vasconcelos, known for giant sculptures made from household objects, places more than 40 Valentino Garavani gowns beside her own work. They include the 18-metre “Valkyrie Venus” and giant shoes built from pots and lids. Since 28 October, “A Vida É Um Jogo” (Life Is the Game) offers a mixed-reality session about the passage from death to rebirth. It’s directed and scored by Paulo Furtado, better known as blues-rocker The Legendary Tigerman. Tickets cost €12 for Portuguese residents and €16 for others, with under-12s free. Session details are on the museum’s website.
Day of the Dead at the National Ethnology Museum
📅 31 October, 14:30–19:45
📍 Museu Nacional de Etnologia, Restelo
💸 Free
The museum marks Mexico’s Day of the Dead, when families build altars with photos of the departed, marigolds and sugar skulls and welcome their ancestors’ souls with celebration. The afternoon brings Catrina-painting workshops, face painting, a piñata and folk dance. At 18:15 Mexico’s ambassador, Bruno Figueroa, opens the exhibition “Dia dos Mortos no México” with a full ofrenda altar (it runs to 14 December), followed by pan de muerto and hot chocolate. A gentle alternative to Halloween parties, and family-friendly.
MATA•BOSK
📅 31 October, 20:00; 1 November, 17:30
📍 Teatro São Luiz, Chiado
💸 Free
A dance piece by Catarina Miranda, one of Portugal’s notable younger choreographers, with third-year students of the Escola Superior de Dança. She frames it as an “ecology of perception”, where Luís Pestana’s light and sound matter as much as bodies. There are no words, so language is no barrier. Free tickets are handed out at the box office on the day from 15:00, up to four per person.
Fábrica Assombrada — Horror Festival
📅 30 & 31 October, from 19:00; main programme from 21:00
📍 Fábrica da Pólvora de Barcarena, Barcarena (Oeiras)
💸 €39
A 16th–19th-century gunpowder factory becomes a horror zone for two nights, with scare corridors, flash escape rooms, mazes, street actors, shows and themed food. You choose your own route, and since the scares are mostly wordless, Portuguese hardly matters. For a group that wants to be properly frightened.
Porto and around
Serralves: last day of Vexation of Spirit, Jake Chapman and a Miguel Gomes retrospective
📅 30 October – 1 November; 1 November, 11:00 — talk with Jake Chapman
📍 Fundação de Serralves and Casa do Cinema Manoel de Oliveira, Porto
💸 Tickets
Sunday is the last day of “Vexation of Spirit”, about 90 works by 34 artists from the Duerckheim Collection:
- Goya;
- Richter;
- Kiefer;
- Polke;
- Baselitz;
- Gilbert & George;
- Hirst, with a bull in formaldehyde.
That morning at 11:00, British artist Jake Chapman leads a talk-tour called “The End of Fun”. With his brother Dinos he was one of the 1990s Young British Artists, known for brutal reworkings of Goya. The talk is free with a ticket. On Friday the park opens “Simetrias Ocultas em Muros de Vidro”, a science-and-art show about diatoms, glass-shelled microalgae. On Saturday the Casa do Cinema Manoel de Oliveira begins a full retrospective of Miguel Gomes, director of “Tabu” and “Grand Tour”, which won him Best Director at Cannes in 2024.
Passos no Escuro: Barbarian
📅 31 October, 22:00
📍 Passos Manuel, Rua de Passos Manuel 137, Porto
💸 €6
A Halloween screening in the old Passos Manuel cinema, marking the 7th anniversary of the Passos no Escuro film club. The film is Zach Cregger’s horror (he later made “Weapons”), starring Georgina Campbell, Bill Skarsgård and Justin Long. A woman arrives in Detroit to find her rental house already occupied by a stranger, and beyond that it’s best to know nothing. In Portugal it only came out on streaming, so this is its first big-screen showing, with subtitles. Before it come restored horror trailers from the American Genre Film Archive and the short “Final da Noite” by the Gandum brothers. Seating is unnumbered.
Football: FC Porto vs Estoril Praia
📅 31 October, 20:30
📍 Estádio do Dragão, Porto
💸 Tickets
Round 10 of the Portuguese league at the Dragão, FC Porto’s 50,000-seat stadium built for Euro 2004. Porto, twice European champions, host Estoril from Lisbon’s suburbs. Tickets are sold only to fans registered on the club’s site, and doors open at 19:00. Take the metro to Estádio do Dragão.
Eat / Drink
Chestnut season has arrived, and the whole country is celebrating the magusto. The All Saints’ fairs are worth the drive: Santarém, an hour from Lisbon, brings together cooking from every region, and Alvito has been selling chestnuts since 1295.
Lisbon and around
45th National Gastronomy Festival
📅 until 1 November, from 12:00; closes 19:00 on Sunday
📍 Casa do Campino, Santarém
💸 €2.50
The National Gastronomy Festival is in its 45th year, with restaurants from across Portugal cooking their signature dishes and folk music in the evenings. New this year is the Taberna da Casa, serving bar snacks and Ribatejo dishes. Entry is free on Friday until 18:00, then €2.50, paid all day at the weekend, and free for under-12s. Santarém, capital of the Ribatejo, is about an hour from Lisbon; after lunch, walk to the Portas do Sol viewpoint over the Tagus.
The Gastronomy Festival in Santarém: regional produce, local delicacies and the flavours of Portugal.
Further afield
Feira dos Santos e Frutos Secos (All Saints’ and Dried Fruit Fair)
📅 30 October – 1 November
📍 Alvito, Alentejo
💸 Free
The Alvito fair is more than 700 years old: founded in 1295, it has sold chestnuts, nuts and dried fruit on All Saints’ ever since. There’s Alentejo food and cante alentejano, the polyphonic male singing on UNESCO’s intangible heritage list. On Friday night Miguel Gameiro (90s pop-rock, of Pólo Norte) performs, and on Saturday the Coimbra band Os Quatro e Meia. The 15th-century castle is now a heritage hotel. Alvito is two hours from Lisbon, so it suits an overnight trip.
Chestnut fairs: Trancoso and Góis
📅 Trancoso: 30 October – 1 November; Góis: 31 October – 1 November
📍 Trancoso, Guarda district; Góis, Coimbra district
💸 Free · Góis
Early November in central and northern Portugal means the magusto, a feast of roast chestnuts with new wine and jeropiga (a fortified grape drink). Walled Trancoso in the Beiras holds its 13th Chestnut and Autumn Flavours fair. On Saturday night The Rockets, Portuguese rockers of the 1960s, play, and on Sunday from 15:00 there’s folk music and a village magusto. In Góis, in the Lousã hills, the fair combines All Saints’, honey and chestnuts, with a soup festival at 12:30 on Sunday and a communal magusto at 17:30. Góis is closer, about 2.5 hours from Lisbon.
Get Active
The best way to spend the holiday Sunday morning is on the Sintra trails, climbing to the highest point of the hills with views of Pena and the ocean. On Saturday evening you can run in costume through an Almada park with the kids.
Lisbon and around
Sintra Trail Cruz Alta
📅 1 November: 20 km at 08:15, 12 km at 08:45, 8 km walk at 09:00
📍 Largo Rainha D. Amélia, by the National Palace, Sintra
💸 €8–20
Named after Cruz Alta, the stone cross on the highest point of the Sintra hills (529 m), with views of both Pena Palace and the ocean. It starts in the historic centre and climbs through the forest trails of the Sintra parks. The distances:
- 20 km (21+, €20);
- 12 km introductory trail (18+, €12);
- 8 km walk (10+, €8; free for kids born 2014 or later).
Registration closes 31 October and numbers are capped. Sintra’s centre is closed to cars from 08:00 to 13:00, so take the train.
Participants in the Sintra Trail Cruz Alta make their way along rocky forest trails in the Sintra Mountains.
11th Halloween Run Party
📅 31 October, evening
📍 Parque da Paz, Almada
💸 Register
An evening costume run in its 11th year, from Xistarca, one of Lisbon’s main race organisers. The 4 km loop goes round Parque da Paz, Almada’s largest park: runners do it twice for 8 km, walkers once, and under-12s get their own 500 m lap. You finish at dusk, so a head torch is a €5 add-on, and a technical T-shirt is another €5. Good for families where adults and kids all run.
With Kids
Kids have more choice this weekend than adults: the Oceanário at €15 for everyone, ghost stories in Sintra at dusk, pumpkin carving at Porto’s historic market and a whodunit among vintage trams. Groups are small, so book now.
Lisbon and around
Halloweek at the Oceanário
📅 until 1 November
📍 Oceanário de Lisboa, Parque das Nações
💸 €15
During Halloween week entry is €15 for every age, but only when you buy online by 31 October; the ticket is valid through Sunday. A regular adult ticket is €29, so big families save a lot, and the number of tickets is capped. At the centre is a huge tank with sharks, rays and an ocean sunfish. The atrium hosts the last days of “Monstros Marinhos” (Sea Monsters), life-size prehistoric marine predators made with Dino Parque Lourinhã.
A life-size model of a prehistoric marine predator at the “Sea Monsters” exhibition at Oceanário de Lisboa.
Halloween at Lisbon Zoo
📅 31 October & 1 November, 10:00–18:00
📍 Jardim Zoológico, Sete Rios
💸 €18–29
The zoo, open since 1884, dresses its reptile house for Halloween with giant cobwebs, guided educational tours, games and raffles, all included in the regular ticket. With around 2,000 animals and a cable car over the enclosures, plan on half a day. The metro stops right at the gate.
Scary Tales of Halloween
📅 31 October, 21:30
📍 Largo da Feira de S. Pedro, Sintra
💸 €5–10
An evening walk through Sintra with ghost stories for 6–12-year-olds and their parents. A town of palaces, misty forests and Masonic legends is made for this. Book by 30 October via lynxtravel11@gmail.com.
Porto and around
Comic-Con Kids: Halloween Edition
📅 31 October & 1 November, from 11:00
📍 Multiusos de Guimarães, Guimarães
💸 €20 per day
The kids’ version of Comic Con Portugal, the country’s biggest pop-culture fair, in a Halloween edition, with cosplay, cartoon and comic heroes, games and workshops. A two-day pass is €36, a weekend family pass for four €118, and under-2s go free. Guimarães is 50 minutes from Porto by train.
Pumpkin carving at Mercado do Bolhão
📅 31 October, 11:00–13:00
📍 Mercado do Bolhão, Porto
💸 Free
At Porto’s restored main market, in business since 1914, kids carve a jack-o’-lantern and take it home. Ages 5+, accompanied by an adult, places limited. Afterwards, wander the stalls for fruit and petiscos (Portuguese small plates).
A Última Viagem (The Last Ride)
📅 31 October, 15:00 & 17:00
📍 Museu do Carro Eléctrico, Alameda Basílio Teles 51, Porto
💸 €10, one adult and child €15
A Halloween family whodunit: teams gather clues among vintage trams in a former power station by the Douro and work out the culprit. The museum itself delights kids, with trams going back to the late 19th century. The game is in Portuguese, but with a parent alongside it’s easy to follow.
Also Worth It
This section is worth a trip to Évora. Europe’s next Capital of Culture opens Golden Hour in the palace of the Dukes of Cadaval and, five minutes’ walk away, shows Baroque art beside Art Brut for free. Closer to home there’s a fiery Samhain in Sintra, Elif Shafak and Andrey Kurkov at the Gulbenkian, and Palácio Biester by night.
Lisbon and around
Samhain Fire Fest 2026
📅 30 October, 16:00–23:00; 31 October, 11:00–23:00; 1 November, 11:00–22:00
📍 Quinta da Ribafria, Lourel, Sintra
💸 €8 per day, €20 for three days
The third edition of a festival devoted to Samhain, the Celtic end-of-harvest feast that Halloween grew out of. A 16th-century estate near Sintra hosts:
- Ophiussa’s fire theatre;
- a ritual by the Portuguese Pagan Federation;
- concerts;
- storytellers;
- a medieval market and taverns.
The main days are Saturday and Sunday. Sunday’s family programme, “Pão pelos Deuses”, nods to the Portuguese 1 November custom of children going door to door asking for “bread for God’s sake”. Teens 13–18 pay €5, and under-12s go free.
A fire performance at Samhain Fire Fest, a festival celebrating Celtic traditions at Quinta da Ribafria near Sintra.
Lisbon Literature Days
📅 30 October (final day)
📍 Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Avenidas Novas
💸 Free, registration required
The first edition of a literary festival from the Berlin association Bebelplatz, founded by Ulrich Schreiber, who created the Berlin International Literature Festival. Announced guests include Turkish novelist Elif Shafak, Ukrainian novelist Andrey Kurkov, Argentine essayist Alberto Manguel and Syrian poet Nouri Al-Jarrah. Entry is free; register at info@bebelplatz.org and check Friday’s programme online.
Halloween night tour of Palácio Biester
📅 30 & 31 October, 21:00
📍 Palácio Biester, Sintra
💸 €60
A late-19th-century romantic palace by Luigi Manini, the architect of Quinta da Regaleira. The house, with Gothic interiors and a hillside park, stood closed for years (Polanski filmed “The Ninth Gate” here) and opened to the public only in 2022. The 90-minute night tour comes with Halloween décor and live music. After dark it looks exactly the way a Sintra house should on Halloween.
Parliament open day
📅 31 October, 14:30–19:00 (last entry 18:30)
📍 Palácio de São Bento, São Bento
💸 Free
Portugal’s parliament sits in the São Bento Palace, a former Benedictine monastery from the late 16th century. It now opens to visitors on the last Saturday of each month, so you can walk through the debating chamber, the state rooms and the painted corridors, alone or with a guide. Bring ID for the security check.
Crafts & Design Market
📅 1 November
📍 Jardim da Estrela, Estrela
💸 Free
A first-weekend-of-the-month market where everything is made by the sellers themselves: illustration, jewellery, clothes, ceramics and homeware. A good place to start Christmas shopping. Trams 25 and 28 stop nearby.
Further afield
Golden Hour: A Tribute to the Baroque at Palácio Cadaval
📅 31 October 2026 – 6 January 2027, Tuesday–Sunday, 09:00–13:00 and 14:00–18:00
📍 Palácio dos Duques de Cadaval, Évora
💸 Tickets
The Palace of the Dukes of Cadaval stands in the heart of Évora, facing the Roman temple. The family has owned it for centuries and still lives there. King João IV created the dukedom in 1648 for one of the heroes of the Restoration, when Portugal won back its independence from Spain. Today’s owner, Duchess Diana de Cadaval, has turned the palace rooms into an exhibition space. For “Golden Hour” she brings together 17 contemporary artists from Portugal, Brazil, France, England and Turkey, working in sculpture, painting, photography and ceramics. The show is billed as a tribute to the Baroque. Its subject is the century when the country grew rich: from the 1640 Restoration to the Baroque’s peak in the early 18th century, when Brazilian gold poured in and was used to gild the carvings of Portugal’s churches. Watching contemporary artists respond to that era’s gilt and grandeur works best in a house that belongs to the same history. It’s about 90 minutes from Lisbon by car or train. 1 November is a holiday, so check that day’s hours on the palace’s Instagram, @palaciocadaval.
Sagrado Coração (Sacred Heart)
📅 Tuesday–Sunday, 10:00–13:00 and 14:00–19:00, until 28 February 2027
📍 Fundação Eugénio de Almeida, Centro de Arte e Cultura, Évora
💸 Free
The second reason to spend a day in Évora is five minutes’ walk from Palácio Cadaval. Art historian Joaquim Oliveira Caetano sets Baroque church art from the Archdiocese of Évora beside Art Brut from the Treger Saint Silvestre collection. Art Brut is the work of self-taught artists, much of it made in psychiatric hospitals. The four rooms are titled passion, heart, suffering and death, and in each, 17th-century saints face works by people no one ever taught to draw. After Golden Hour it’s a sharp contrast: there, gilt and pomp; here, the same era seen through suffering and faith. Check ahead whether the foundation opens on the holiday Sunday.
Nazaré: big-wave season opens
📅 from 1 November, depending on the forecast
📍 Forte de São Miguel Arcanjo, Nazaré
💸 Free
From 1 November to 31 March the waiting period for the Nazaré Big Wave Challenge, the giant-wave surfing contest, is open. Nazaré’s underwater canyon pushes winter swells to 20–30 metres, and world records have been set here. The contest itself runs on a single day. A yellow alert goes out up to 72 hours ahead, once a swell of at least 25 ft (7.6 m) is forecast, and a green alert confirms it within 24 hours. You can watch the waves and the tow-in surfers from the headland by the fort’s red-and-white lighthouse. On a calm day the ocean looks ordinary, so check the forecast first. About 1.5 hours from Lisbon by car.
