This is a great apartment very (very) centrally located in the Baixa district and perfect for getting to know the Lisbon.
Amazing to open your bedroom windows and look out over the hustle and bustle of the street and restaurants below.
Couple of things. Don’t get a car and if you have one get rid of it. You don’t need it, the municipal parking is 25-40€ a day and the streets around the apartment are pedestrian only. We had a car and immediately took it back. We didn’t need it in Porto (we had a place with free parking) except to get to Duoro and in Algarve.
Look under the master bed. It lifts up and there is a treasure trove of helpful goodies for the apartment.
Liliana was fantastic. Greeted us, gave us some tips, provided a book overviewing the unit and the city. It was so good the people before us took it so she needed to get us a new one.
We found ourselves eating in the Barrio Alta district a fair bit and if you go on tripadvisor and search for restaurants with the discount filter turned on you can always find a 30% off reservation spot nearby.
Lots of great Portuguese food of course. Lisbon was are last leg so we were beginning to crave other food (in Toronto where we live you can eat a different, very authentic cuisine every night). We found her suggestion of BOA-BAO really good - no reservations and we did wait for an hour for our table but we had a walk around and then sat at the bar watching the bartenders do their craft (great to watch as the put a lot of care into each one). Food was awesome. Then we ate at Gandhi Palace in Bairro Alto. It too was amazing and we had the 30% off so we at for about 45€ all in with drinks. Versículo do Faia was outstanding (google their Octopus. We had 2 as split mains and the presentation was eye opening as it’s the entire octopus. Faint of hear might scream and it actually was so much that my wife and kids couldn’t finish their portions. Most of the restaurants directly outside the apartment to me we’re just over the top tourist spots to us, high prices, small portions. UMA was good (messy). Don’t ask for a menu, they have one dish. There’s also a place to get a cone of meat around the corner (head away from Elevador de Santa Justa) so we grabbed bread and cheeses from another place and meat and wine and port and made some yummy sandwiches and appetizers.
Anyway back to the place, super friendly, super local, allowed us to keep our bags there due to our flight times highly recommend (our place in Algarve was a unmitigated disaster so we needed this). Like any great Airbnb host she was there to great us and available when we needed her for anything for anything)
We did a free walking tour (you tip what you feel like at the end) which is so not us as we like to roam but it was actually really good and highly recommend. We tipped 6€ per each of us. Filled in some holes but the one thing you’ll hear about everywhere in southern Portugal starts with the sentence “Before the earthquake on November 1st 1755...”. Not a good day for history or the country.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t say the Pasteis de Nata we found in a little shop, Pastelaria Santo António, in Alfama on our way up to the castle (slightly beat out the ones at the original in Belém). Had to do the Belém experience as it was the birthplace of the little bugger. Oh if you do go to Pasteis de Belem go inside and get a seat as the take away line is normality huge and although it looks tiny out front it sits over 400 people inside its cavernous expanse within. So you’ll eat faster and can enjoy not waiting in a line (we did wait a few minutes).
Bring pepper packages to Portugal if you like it. That little spice was tough to track down. Not even McDonalds or BurgerKing has it there.
There’s a small grocery store just down the street about 150m towards the water on the same side as the unit. Love the fresh squeezed OJ all over however there’s a electric juicer in the unit we found the last day (dang).
Obrigado Lillian! Obrigado Portugal!