The positive part about this unit is the beautiful view out of the bedroom window. There is no direct water view from inside (you have to stick your head out the window), but the red rooftops look amazing at sunrise. The hosts did their best with this unit, providing plenty of clean linens and a comfortable bed. Our main issues with this unit stems from it being in a very old and not well maintained building.
My first impression was that the pictures make the unit look much nicer than it actually is. The building for this unit is very old and has not been well maintained, which is reflected inside the unit somewhat. The biggest comfort issue was that the noise from the upstairs neighbors walking around was very loud. The wooden floor emanates the sound of footsteps, and I can imagine that our downstair neighbors can hear us as well. It is a problem late at night and early in the morning, when we are trying to sleep.
The faucet in the bathroom sink was also not working properly, with just a dribble of water coming out. We contacted the host to get this fixed, and he had someone come by. However, the person who came by thought that this was an acceptable level of flow, and I had to contact the host again for someone to come the next day and get this fixed. In the end, it did get fixed, but I had hoped that the issue could have been resolved without much trouble.
Alfama is actually not close to anything, besides the Fado restaurants and Castelo of Sao Jorge. We had to walk 20 minutes to get anywhere, and the closest public transport stop is the tram, which is crowded at all times. If you want to be more centrally located, then this might not be the best place.