Boutique Hotels in Lisbon

Lisbon is best understood by its neighbourhoods, most of them walkable from one another if you can manage the hills. Alfama, the oldest quarter, is a maze of stepped lanes below the São Jorge castle, the home of fado and the best of the miradouro viewpoints. Below it, the Baixa — the downtown rebuilt on a grid after 1755 — runs in handsome straight streets from the riverside Praça do Comércio up to the squares of Rossio. West and uphill, Chiado is the elegant shopping and café district, and above it Bairro Alto, quiet and arty by day and the heart of the nightlife after dark.

Beyond the centre, Príncipe Real is the smart, leafy, residential quarter of design shops and gardens; Belém, downriver, holds the great monuments of the age of discoveries — the Jerónimos Monastery and the Belém Tower — and the original pastéis de nata. The riverfront has been reclaimed for walking and the Time Out Market; and the whole city is stitched together by the famous trams, the funiculars up the steepest hills, and the viewpoints that make every climb worth it.

The club's Lisbon hotels sit one to a quarter, which makes choosing one a matter of choosing a neighbourhood. In Bairro Alto, The Lumiares fills a restored eighteenth-century palace of the Count of Lumiares with apartment-style suites, opposite the São Pedro de Alcântara viewpoint. A few minutes west in Príncipe Real, the smart residential quarter, The Vintage plays a mid-century design hand, all curved lines and one-off Lisbon craft, with a rooftop and a rotating art programme. Down on the Santa Catarina hill between Bica and Chiado, Verride Palácio Santa Catarina is a grand little palace turned to a 360-degree view over the rooftops and the Tagus. And on the river side at Cais do Sodré, Corpo Santo is a history hotel built around a preserved stretch of the medieval Fernandina Wall, found when the site was dug.

Lisbon is a great eating city. The tradition is seafood and salt cod, grilled fish, the tinned-fish revival, and the custard tarts that are a religion here; alongside it has grown a serious modern restaurant scene, a wave of natural-wine bars, and markets like the Time Out hall that gather the city's best kitchens under one roof. The wine is excellent and good value — the Lisbon and Setúbal regions on the doorstep, the Douro and Alentejo a little further — and an evening of fado, the city's mournful, beautiful song, is the classic way to end a night in Alfama or Bairro Alto.

The city is also a base: Sintra's romantic hilltop palaces are forty minutes off, the beaches of Cascais about the same, the Atlantic surf beyond. Most visitors give Lisbon three or four days and find it is not enough — the city repays wandering, and the hills mean every walk turns up another view.

Lisbon is mild and sunny for much of the year, which is a large part of its appeal. Spring and early summer, from April to June, are arguably the best: warm, bright days, the jacarandas in bloom, and the city lively but not yet crowded. High summer, July and August, is hot, busy and at its most festive — the Santo António street parties fill June — while the heat and the crowds peak. Autumn, September and October, brings warm days, softer light and the grape harvest, and is among the loveliest times to visit. Winter is mild, bright and quiet, with cool but often sunny days and the lowest prices of the year. There is no bad season; for the balance of weather and space, spring and autumn win.