"Lisboa: this is where I live!!!" a Lisbon Travel Page by Ritac

Hi! This is where I live. My house is in Saldanha. Lisboa has a lot of monuments to see, spreaded trough out many places and in a wide range from historical to contemporary buildings. We also have a lot of nice beaches here, on the vicinity - better ones for me crossing the river in Costa da Caparica and near Cascais (Guincho) 30 ktms away from Lisboa.

A VT friend asked me about buyng a house in Lisboa, if someone else is interested, here's some tips about it: Lisboa has a not healthy real estate investments market at this moment. What I mean to say is that price/m2 is reaching values never saw and most of the apartments or homes doesn't have any kind of special item that could justify the price. You can find a very
bad thing very expensive and what is strange is that someone appears and buy it so since 1998 after expo 98 world fair prices raised in a very bad proportion to
what is offered.
One of the best places in Lisboa is Lapa/Estrela area. Very expensive, but with outstanding views for the river in some parts. Price: average 4000€ / m2. Restelo area, near Bel้m is also one of the expensive places in Lisboa. But it worth it,
its a very nice place it great river views.
A zone called avenidas novas(where I live) is also expensive because there's a lot of offices there and some other moving to there so the prices are high. Also
is a central area (saldanha is really the geographic center of the city) Price: average 3500m2
The historical areas like bairro alto, madragoa, alfama, castelo are very
expensive but in my opinion not worth it because most of the apartments ofered have bad (small) compartments and need big recovery/maintenance work (about 3500/3700€ m2) but of course there's some lovely places there. Zones like Benfica, Telheiras, Olivais, Expo, etc are dormitory zones from middle class
with prices like 2000€ or 2500€. A nice place is Avenida de Roma, it was a former CBD of the city in the 50's (2500€). You also have the condominiums, spreaded trough the city, from the surroundings
to the center. Prices vary a lot depending on what is offered.
I don't know you but I would suggest that a nice place for you to buy would be Campo de Ourique - it's a very friendly neighbourhood, central zone near Estrela and near the major access axes to the city from the brifge or to the north. It
was a zone built in the 30's, lot of small comerce there and nice restaurants too (around 2500€ and up). Under the 2000€ m2 only on the outskirts or in the south bank of the river :)) So, make your choice!!!

In October: Some rainy days now...temperature is 17 celsius at night and 24 during day.

In September: Ok the heat has gone now. Temperature is better and there's some rainy days. Beach time is going slowly. Everybody is coming from vacation. The trafic is getting bad again :)

In August: Most of the Locals are in vacations. Lisboa is now full of foreigners. The beaches in the vicinity are crowded.

Don' forget that the best hour to go dinner is about 22:00h. You can find restaurants earlier, of course, but don't expect to see many people there.
Every disco/dancing/bar has it's better hour to go, when it's crowded :) and day of the week. Most of them are better on Thursdays/Fridays/Saturdays. There are some better on Sundays, or Tuesdays.
So, don't forget: in my tips I will give you the spots where me and my friends use to go. You will not find too many tourists on this places. Probably during summer you can spot some, but this are places where Lisboetas use to go - and this ones are the best to go at this moment.

Finally, I would say that since I started this page I got a lot of email from people saying that I only gave tips on restaurants, and nightlife, etc. I can give tips about monuments, and churchs, and the castle, etc, but I guess this is the kind of info you get from a tourist office easy. My intention is only to provide some knowledge on the other part of the city that most of the tourists never has access, because they don't have time to explorer, or because they're in a group with everything programed, etc.
Hope you like my tips!!
Rita