Lapa / Madragoa

As Janelas Verdes

★★★★★

As Janelas Verdes, the Green Windows, is the kind of small hotel that people return to year after year. It occupies an eighteenth-century aristocratic house on Rua das Janelas Verdes in the Lapa and Madragoa district, right next door to the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Portugal's national museum of old master art, and it has the gentle, lived-in feel of a private home. Tradition holds that the novelist Eça de Queirós lived or spent time here, and some believe the house inspired the Ramalhete, the family mansion in his great novel Os Maias; the hotel leans into the literary connection with books, paintings and objects throughout the public rooms. There are 29 rooms, including doubles, twins and three suites, decorated in a classic Portuguese style and described as sunny and cheerful. The heart of the house is the walled garden, a green, ivy-covered courtyard with a fountain, where breakfast is served in spring and summer and where it is easy to linger with a book. The atmosphere is quiet and relaxed, more country house than city hotel, and the service, as at the other properties in the family-run Lisbon Heritage Collection, is personal and attentive. There is a small bar in the sitting room, but no restaurant, spa or pool. It is a hotel for couples, readers, art lovers and anyone who wants a calm retreat at the end of the day, a few minutes from the river and on the tram route to Belém.

The location is one of Lisbon's best kept secrets. Lapa is a residential, embassy district of quiet streets and handsome houses, and Madragoa below it is an old neighbourhood of small restaurants and tascas. The National Museum of Ancient Art, home to Nuno Gonçalves' panels and the Japanese Namban screens, is literally next door, with a lovely garden café overlooking the river. Trams 15 and 25 run nearby along the riverside and through Lapa, connecting to the Baixa and to Belém, and Santos and the Cais do Sodré nightlife are a short walk or ride away.

Living in it: ask for an upper-floor room for the best light and outlook. Be prepared for some climbing: Lapa is hilly, and while you are close to the river and the trams, the walk to the Baixa is long. Taxis are easy to find. Breakfast in the garden on a warm morning is a highlight, so build in an unhurried start.

Base math: Janelas Verdes is upper mid-range, typically cheaper than the luxury hotels of Lapa and Chiado and full of character. It suits couples, art lovers and repeat visitors who know Lisbon and want a quieter base near the river and Belém. First-timers who want to walk out of the door into the Baixa or Alfama might be better served by a more central hotel.