# Is Estrela 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/estrela
Every Lisbon district: https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-lisbon.md

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.

Facts: 25 min walk to the Baixa; 30 min to the airport; 35 min to the beach; price €€€; best for quiet, couples, longer stays, food; lines 18E, 25E, 28E.
Safety: Mixed after dark. The Santos strip by the river is the part of this freguesia that changes after midnight. Lapa and the streets around the garden stay quiet all night.

Estrela is the quiet western edge of central Lisbon: the basilica and its garden, the parliament, Madragoa's low streets, and Lapa above the river, which is where the embassies and the expensive restaurants are. Tourists pass through it on tram 25 and almost none of them sleep here.

That is most of the appeal. You get a genuinely residential Lisbon fifteen to twenty-five minutes' walk from the Baixa, at rates below Chiado, with Cais do Sodré and the Time Out Market a walk east along the river.

Two things hold it back. There is no metro station in the freguesia, so it is trams 25E and 28E or a long uphill walk, and Lapa is steep in every direction. And the Santos waterfront at the bottom is a bar strip that runs late at weekends, which is a different district from the one you booked three streets uphill.

What works:
- Jardim da Estrela and the basilica, with almost no tourists in either
- Trams 25E and 28E both run through it towards the Baixa
- Lapa is the quietest central address in Lisbon; the embassies picked it
- Cais do Sodré and the Time Out Market are fifteen minutes east

What does not:
- No metro station anywhere in the freguesia
- Lapa is steep in every direction, and it is a climb up from the river
- The Santos waterfront is a bar strip and it runs late at weekends
- Lapa restaurant prices match the postcode rather than the city

Hotels in Estrela: https://www.stay22.com/allez/booking?aid=stayzones&link=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.booking.com%2Fsearchresults.html%3Fdest_id%3D1948%26dest_type%3Ddistrict%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.
- [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.
- [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.