# Is São Vicente 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/sao-vicente
Every Lisbon district: https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-lisbon.md

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.

Facts: 20 min walk to the Baixa; 20 min to the airport; 45 min to the beach; price €€; best for sights, couples, budget, solo travellers; lines 12E, 28E.

São Vicente is Graça, the upper half of Alfama, the National Pantheon and the Feira da Ladra flea market. It has the two best free viewpoints in the city, Miradouro da Graça and Senhora do Monte, and a room with a view up here costs less than a room without one down in the Baixa.

The reason is transport. There is no metro station anywhere in the freguesia. You have tram 28, which is standing-room-only in both directions by the time it reaches Graça, a handful of buses, or the climb: roughly 90 vertical metres up from the Baixa on cobbles that are slippery in rain.

Book it if you will be out walking all day anyway and the view at breakfast matters more than the walk home. Do not book it for anyone hauling a suitcase up from the metro, because there is no metro to haul it up from.

What works:
- Miradouro da Graça and Senhora do Monte, both free and both worth it
- Tram 28 runs through it, and you board before the centre fills it
- Cheaper than Santa Maria Maior for a room with a much better view
- Feira da Ladra flea market on Campo de Santa Clara twice a week

What does not:
- No metro station in the freguesia at all: tram, bus or the climb
- About 90 vertical metres up from the Baixa, on cobbles
- Restaurants thin out quickly away from the two viewpoints
- Tram 28 arrives here already full in the other direction

Hotels in São Vicente: https://www.stay22.com/allez/booking?aid=stayzones&link=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.booking.com%2Fsearchresults.html%3Fdest_id%3D8266%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.
- [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.
- [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.