Madragoa

- Madragoa Apartments, Santos Station, Universidade Europeia, Av. Dom Carlos I

Madragoa is a district West of the city center, right north of Santos Station and Tagus River. It has a typical Lisbon character with very picturesque old buildings, somewhat runddown but modern on the indside and colourful, steep hills and laundry hanging across the streets. It has more of a residential feeling and is less touristy. Universidade Europeia (Eurpean University) is a large modern highrise building with diagonal lines at Avenida Dom CArlos I, that ends at the riverfront.

This is where we stayed for the first days, in a rent apartment called the Madragoa Apartments, in a typical bohemic residence building s above the street Rua Madres, but top modern inside with laundry machine and a modern kitchen (with oven and microwave), living room and bedroom. As the reception is sitauted on Avenida Liberdade in the city center, after we arrived from Portela Airport by metro in the early evening, we had to visit this address, catch the key and get an Uber taxi (that the apartment company paid for) that had hard times to find our address in Madragoa. It was great to stay in an authentic Lisbon area. The apartment where we stayed in Madragoa was only about 15 minutes walk to Praca do Comercio in the heart of Lisbon, and even closer to the Santos Station, a rundown outdoor station where you can take trains to Estoril and Cascais. The apartment was a short but steep uphill walk to a Pingo Doce store, Portugal's leadiong supermarket chain. There are problems finding apartments to live in central Lisbon, because so many rent them to tourists.