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

Verdict: Avoid. Cheap for a reason. Read the cons first.

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

Two UNESCO sites, the best custard tarts in Portugal, and seven kilometres between you and dinner. Come for a morning, sleep somewhere else.

Facts: 80 min walk to the Baixa; 35 min to the airport; 30 min to the beach; price €€€; best for sights, quiet, families; lines 15E, 18E.

Belém is where Portugal keeps the monuments: the Jerónimos Monastery and the Belém Tower, both UNESCO sites, plus the Monument to the Discoveries, the Coach Museum, MAAT and the original Pastéis de Belém. Everyone visits. Almost nobody should sleep here.

It is seven kilometres west of the Baixa. Tram 15E takes about 25 minutes when you get a seat and considerably longer when you do not, and the waterfront monuments are cut off from the streets and the tram stop by a working railway line you cross on footbridges. Coach parties start arriving at 09:00, so you get the crowds without getting the evening.

By 22:30 the restaurants have closed and the district is residential and dark. The hotels are good and the setting is genuinely handsome, but you will spend an hour a day travelling to the city you bought the flight to see.

What works:
- Jerónimos, the Belém Tower and MAAT are five minutes apart on foot
- Pastéis de Belém is open until 23:00 and is worth the queue
- Riverside and flat, which almost nothing else in Lisbon manages

What does not:
- Seven kilometres from the Baixa; tram 15E is 25 minutes if it is not full
- Restaurants shut around 22:30 and most of them close on Mondays
- The waterfront monuments are cut off from the streets by a railway line
- Coach parties from 09:00, so you get the crowds and not the evening

Hotels in Belém: https://www.stay22.com/allez/booking?aid=stayzones&link=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.booking.com%2Fsearchresults.html%3Fss%3DBel%25C3%25A9m%252C%2520Lisbon%26latitude%3D38.70387165283019%26longitude%3D-9.210864613207546%26nflt%3Ddistance%253D1348%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.
- [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.
- [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.