# Is Parque das Nações 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/parque-das-nacoes
Every Lisbon district: https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-lisbon.md

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.

Facts: 85 min walk to the Baixa; 8 min to the airport; 50 min to the beach; price €€; best for families, business trips, budget; lines Vermelha.

Parque das Nações is the Expo '98 site, kept and built on after the world's fair closed. It is the cleanest and most orderly part of Lisbon: wide riverside promenades, the Oceanário, a cable car, a casino, the Vasco da Gama shopping centre and Calatrava's Oriente station.

It is also the reason people come home disappointed. Nothing here is older than 1998. No old town, no tram, no tiled street, no fado. Reaching the historic centre means the red line to Alameda, a change onto the green line and about half an hour door to door - each way, twice a day, for the whole trip.

There are two honest reasons to book it: a conference at the FIL, or a very early flight, since Oriente is eight minutes from the airport. With small children and the Oceanário as the point of the trip it is defensible for one night. Otherwise this is the classic Lisbon booking mistake: cheap, modern, well reviewed, and in the wrong city.

What works:
- Oriente station puts the airport eight minutes and Porto three hours away
- The Oceanário is one of the largest aquariums in Europe and is right there
- Wide flat riverside promenade, which matters with a pushchair

What does not:
- Red line to Alameda, change to green, then walk: about 30 minutes each way
- Every building is younger than 1998, so none of the reason you came is here
- The evening is a shopping-centre food court and a casino
- It is exposed and windy on the river front in a way photographs never show

Hotels in Parque das Nações: https://www.stay22.com/allez/booking?aid=stayzones&link=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.booking.com%2Fsearchresults.html%3Fdest_id%3D1272%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.
- [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.
- [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.