# Is Avenidas Novas 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/avenidas-novas
Every Lisbon district: https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-lisbon.md

Saldanha, the Gulbenkian and the office blocks. Two metro lines, honest prices, and no reason at all to walk anywhere after dinner.

Facts: 35 min walk to the Baixa; 12 min to the airport; 45 min to the beach; price €€; best for business trips, budget, longer stays, families; lines Amarela, Vermelha, Azul.

Avenidas Novas is where Lisbon works. Saldanha, Picoas and São Sebastião are office blocks, chain hotels and the Gulbenkian museum, laid out along broad early-20th-century avenues that were new when the name was chosen and are not new now.

The case for it is arithmetic. Rates run about a third below the historic centre for the same star rating, the yellow and red metro lines cross at Saldanha, and the airport is twelve minutes on the red line with no change. For a week-long stay, a family that wants a real supermarket, or anyone here for a conference, that adds up fast.

The case against it is everything you came for. No river, no tram, no tiled façades, no old town. It is about thirty-five minutes on foot to the Baixa and the return leg is uphill. On a Sunday the avenues are shut. Treat it as somewhere to sleep cheaply and commute from and it works; expect Lisbon out of the window and it does not.

What works:
- Yellow and red lines cross at Saldanha; airport twelve minutes, no change
- Room rates about a third below the historic centre at the same star rating
- The Gulbenkian museum and its gardens are the best thing in north Lisbon
- Real supermarkets and El Corte Inglés, which the old town does not have

What does not:
- It is an office district: on Sunday the avenues are shut
- Thirty-five minutes on foot to the Baixa, and uphill coming back
- Chain conference hotels, so the room is fine and the building is nothing
- No river, no tram and no tiled streets - none of the reason you came

Hotels in Avenidas Novas: https://www.stay22.com/allez/booking?aid=stayzones&link=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.booking.com%2Fsearchresults.html%3Fss%3DAvenidas%2520Novas%252C%2520Lisbon%26latitude%3D38.7376441%26longitude%3D-9.154117549999999%26nflt%3Ddistance%253D1000%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.
- [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.
- [Alcântara](https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-lisbon/alcantara): Mixed. 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.
- [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.