As Janelas Verdes

Hotel description

Just down the road from the National Art Museum on the Rua das Janelas Verdes is an eighteenth-century mansion; once the home of the Portuguese novelist Eça de Queirós, today it’s a small and elegant boutique hotel, with many of the trappings of an old-fashioned literary residence— wood-paneled walls, ornate armchairs, musty old books, maps and antique objets d’art at every turn.

The twenty-nine guest rooms are spacious, varying in plan, layout and design, all tasteful and elegant, of a piece with the hotel’s public spaces, each supplied with a complimentary decanter of port to help get you into the proper aristocratic spirit.

The better rooms look out the back of the building, over the tranquil courtyard garden where cocktails and meals are served, weather permitting. An elegant dining room serves as an alternate venue, and the ambience is perhaps best soaked up from the wood-paneled library, opening onto a sprawling balcony where drinks are served with views out over the Tagus river.