Belém

Monastery, tower, custard tarts and four museums along the river, 6 km west of downtown. Dead after dark.

Belém is the riverside stretch 6 km west of Baixa where Portugal built its monuments to the sea: the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos, the Torre de Belém out in the water, the 1960 Padrão dos Descobrimentos, and the vast open lawns of Praça do Império between them. It is also where Pastéis de Belém, at Rua de Belém 84-92, has been making the original custard tart since 1837 at around €1.40 each, in a warren of tiled rooms behind a shop counter with two separate queues — one to take away, one to sit. It is not a neighbourhood so much as a monumental parkland with houses at the edges.

The museum density is the highest in the city: MAAT down on the waterfront in Amanda Levete's tiled wave of a building, the contemporary art collection at the CCB, the National Coach Museum with its gilded 18th-century carriages, the Ajuda palace up the hill, and the Tropical Botanical Garden behind Praça do Império. You could spend three full days here and not repeat yourself. What you cannot do is spend three evenings — almost everything closes by 6pm or 7pm, the coach parties leave, and by 9pm the streets around Rua de Belém are close to empty.

That emptiness is the honest case against staying here. There are only a dozen or so hotels, they are mostly business or upper-end (€110-180 in January, €200-350 in season at the good ones), and dinner options within walking distance number maybe six or eight — Enoteca de Belém on Travessa Marta Pinto, a couple on Rua Vieira Portuense facing the garden, the kiosk-restaurant A Margem out on the water, the Michelin-starred room at the Altis Belém if you are spending. Everything else means a tram or train back into town.

Stay in Belém if you want river air, morning runs along the waterfront to Alcântara, an early start on Jerónimos before the queues form, and no interest in nightlife. Everyone else should stay central and come out here for a day — the train from Cais do Sodré takes seven minutes, which makes basing yourself here for the monuments a solution to a problem you do not have.

Where to sleep

The hotel stock is small and splits into two: the waterfront cluster near the Doca de Belém and Altis Belém, and a handful of guesthouses on Rua de Belém, Rua Vieira Portuense and up towards Calçada da Ajuda. Expect €105-180 in January and €200-350 from May to October at the four- and five-stars, with guesthouses €30-60 below that. Rooms facing Avenida da Índia or the railway line catch traffic and train noise all day — ask for the river or garden side. Avoid the far end of Restelo unless you have a car, since the walk back from the monuments is 20 minutes uphill and the bus is infrequent in the evening. Check whether breakfast is included: at these prices it often is not, and Belém has few cheap breakfast options before 8am beyond the pastelaria queue.

The essentials

Monuments waterfront (3.5 km)

Start at MAAT on Avenida Brasília, walk the roof, then east past the old power station and back west under the railway to the Coach Museum. Cross Praça Afonso de Albuquerque to Rua de Belém and the pastelaria, up to Jerónimos and Praça do Império, then out over the footbridge to the Padrão dos Descobrimentos and along the river path to the Torre de Belém and the Doca do Bom Sucesso.

Getting there & around

The train is the fast way in: Cais do Sodré to Belém on the Cascais line takes seven minutes and costs about €1.45, running every 10-20 minutes from before 6am to past 1am. Tram 15E from Praça da Figueira or Cais do Sodré takes 20-30 minutes, is more scenic and more crowded, and is a known pickpocket route. Bus 728 runs the riverfront from Santa Apolónia. From the airport, red line to Alameda, green line to Cais do Sodré, then the train — about 50 minutes total for €1.80 plus the train fare, or €22-28 by taxi. Inside Belém everything is flat and walkable, with the monuments spread over about 1.5 km.