Heading to Lisbon, Portugal, in a couple of weeks, looking for recommendations on areas to stay. We like the historical areas and night life, would like to walk the area. We are able to change hotels to experience different parts of the city. Thanks for the advice!

Barrio alto and Alfama

Just came back from Lisbon. I stayed in Sao Bento, right beside the parliament building. It's a nice area to stay.

BTW, I joined a half day local walking tour to Alfama. Learned a lot about the history of Lisbon. Found it quite fun.

I was going to look for day trips while I'm there, do you know the tour group name? How did you find it?

I believe it is called inside Lisbon. Found it on TripAdvisor.

Visit Sintra on a day trip for the castles and palaces.

Sintra for sure. Skip Caiscais.
We stayed in the edge of Barrio Alto district just up the hill from the main square and had a great view if the Sao Jorge castle! It was a hostel, but we got a private room.

Stay in alfama (making sure to go to a restaurant with Fado) and visit Sintra for sure

Just note that when you go watch Fado music in a restaurants. Some charges you just for sitting in there.

Also you say weeks... make sure you take time to visit Porto. You'll fall in love with it I promise!

I agree with porto also a great day trip from there is Aveiro (Venice of Portugal) also can take a 20 min local bus ride from there to Costa Nova

We're based in Lisbon, but might have a couple of nights elsewhere, was thinking about spending two night in sintra, do you think it's worth staying there overnight?

Fionaeldoorn ya overnight wouldn't hurt. I would suggest spending more time in porto

overnight would be nice but the downside of Sintra. Everything there cost money every palace and castles and everything else has entrance fee

Sounds like sintra is best done with day tour group which includes entrance fees. Thanks for the tips!

evern in tours is limited and cost 3 times as much

Best is to take the train and go to the tourist office and take advantage of there options for all the parks. If spending a day its good to only vist 1 or 2 locations

We are in Lisbon now and staying by Rossio Square. Walking distance to everything: restaurants, tourist attractions, trams, metro and train station.

Which hotel are you at? We've not booked anything as yet. What's the weather like, looking a few days down the road it looks like it's getting cooler.

Fionaeldoorn there are a lot of airbnb places that might be cheaper and better

I wouldn't recommend the hotel we were at. Residencial Florescente, besides great location, the hotel was very austere, it was very old and needs updating, i had the shower fall on my head and also the shower did not work the first day. The weather we had was hot and sunny in the mid 20's but it can change when you arrive.

Sorry you had that experience in the shower, that's scary. I'm down to two nights to book in somewhere, so I'm getting closer! Thanks for the reply. Hope you enjoy the rest of your stay.

I was there on Sept and we stayed at a nice hostel right in front of Praca Luis de Camoes which is a Plaza. It's a minute walk to Baixa/Chiado station. The area is great location, nightlife, tram, cafe, restaurants, mall. We walked everywhere from there. You can dm me if you want me to send the airbnb we rented the hostel from. It was $40 a night

Our hostel right in front of Luis de Camoes square

That's beautiful, can't wait till I get to Portugal! Thanks for sharing.

We loved it! And it's cheap there compared to other European counties. Have tons of fun!

So I have two nights left to book somewhere, I've been looking at hotels and it seems that most of them have double beds or twins. I'm looking for a queen. Also there seems to be quite a few flats or apartments, has anyone stayed in one of those? Another option is staying on the beach somewhere close to the airport.

We used air bnb and only stayed in flats.