# Is Alcântara a Good Area to Stay in Lisbon? Map & Verdict

Verdict: Mixed. Fine for some travellers, wrong for others.

Interactive map: https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-lisbon/alcantara
Every Lisbon district: https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-lisbon.md

LX Factory, the docks under the bridge, and a great deal of traffic. The most photographed district in Lisbon and the one nobody thinks to sleep in.

Facts: 45 min walk to the Baixa; 30 min to the airport; 25 min to the beach; price €€; best for nightlife, budget, food, solo travellers; lines 15E, 18E.

Alcântara is the old industrial strip between Estrela and Belém, and it is the part of Lisbon that changed most in the last fifteen years. LX Factory, a print works turned into bookshops, restaurants and a rooftop, is here. So are the Docas de Santo Amaro, a row of restaurants and clubs in the old dock buildings directly beneath the 25 de Abril bridge.

The rooms are the cheapest riverside stock in the city, the Cascais train stops at Alcântara-Mar, and Belém is four minutes away by rail. For a second visit, or for anyone whose evening is the point of the trip, that is a real argument.

What you are buying with it is a motorway overhead. The bridge carries traffic all night and you hear it. Between LX Factory and the docks the district is warehouses, dual carriageway and container yards, the Baixa is forty-five minutes on foot, and midweek the Docas are a car park with the restaurants shut.

What works:
- LX Factory is inside the district, not a tram ride from it
- Trains from Alcântara-Mar reach Belém in four minutes and Cascais in thirty
- Cheapest riverside rooms in Lisbon by a clear margin
- The Docas put twenty restaurants and bars in the old dock buildings

What does not:
- The 25 de Abril bridge runs overhead and carries traffic all night
- Forty-five minutes on foot to the Baixa, or a tram that crawls
- Between LX Factory and the docks it is warehouses and dual carriageway
- Midweek the Docas are a car park with most of the restaurants closed

Hotels in Alcântara: https://www.stay22.com/allez/booking?aid=stayzones&link=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.booking.com%2Fsearchresults.html%3Fss%3DAlc%25C3%25A2ntara%252C%2520Lisbon%26latitude%3D38.71056851212122%26longitude%3D-9.186106578787879%26nflt%3Ddistance%253D1185%26group_adults%3D2%26no_rooms%3D1

## Other districts in Lisbon

- [Santa Maria Maior](https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-lisbon/santa-maria-maior): Recommended. The Baixa grid, lower Alfama and the castle hill in one freguesia. You will not buy a metro ticket for three days, and you will pay for the privilege.
- [Misericórdia](https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-lisbon/misericordia): Mixed. Chiado by day, Bairro Alto by night. They share a freguesia and about two hundred metres of hill, which is the entire problem with booking here.
- [Santo António](https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-lisbon/santo-antonio): Recommended. Avenida da Liberdade and the hotels along it. Flat, quiet after 23:00, and fifteen minutes downhill into the Baixa with the metro to bring you back up.
- [São Vicente](https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-lisbon/sao-vicente): Mixed. Graça and the top of Alfama. The best free views in Lisbon, and you earn every one of them again on the walk back from dinner.
- [Estrela](https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-lisbon/estrela): Mixed. Lapa's embassies, the Estrela garden and the Santos bars down by the river. Handsome, residential, and the nearest metro is in somebody else's district.
- [Avenidas Novas](https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-lisbon/avenidas-novas): Mixed. Saldanha, the Gulbenkian and the office blocks. Two metro lines, honest prices, and no reason at all to walk anywhere after dinner.
- [Arroios](https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-lisbon/arroios): Mixed. Anjos, Pena and Intendente, up Almirante Reis from Martim Moniz. The most-lived-in central parish in Lisbon, and the one the guides tell you to be careful in.
- [Campo de Ourique](https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-lisbon/campo-de-ourique): Recommended. A flat grid on the hill above Estrela, at the far end of tram 28. Lisbon's most liveable central parish, with the fewest visitors in it.
- [Penha de França](https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-lisbon/penha-de-franca): Mixed. The hill behind Graça: 1930s apartment blocks, the best free viewpoints in Lisbon and a climb home that beats most people.
- [Areeiro](https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-lisbon/areeiro): Mixed. Big 1940s flats around Alameda and the Areeiro roundabout. Twelve minutes from the airport, two metro lines, and no reason to walk out of the door.
- [Belém](https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-lisbon/belem): Avoid. Two UNESCO sites, the best custard tarts in Portugal, and seven kilometres between you and dinner. Come for a morning, sleep somewhere else.
- [Parque das Nações](https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-lisbon/parque-das-nacoes): Avoid. A 1998 world's fair site with a shopping centre and an aquarium. Clean, modern, well connected, and not the city you bought the flight to see.