Five-star Lapa, Lisbon
Olissippo Lapa Palace
A count's palace of the 1870s on the hill of Lapa, with a turret room over the Tagus and subtropical gardens running down to a heated pool.
Opens the hotel's own website. We have no arrangement with the hotel.
- Built
- 1870, made a palace in 1877
- Hotel since
- 1992
- Pools
- Outdoor in the gardens, indoor all year
- From the airport
- About 20 minutes from Lisbon airport
The hotel
The Count of Valenças on the hill of Lapa.
The house went up in 1870, built by a viscount for one of his sons. The son turned it down, and it was sold to Luís Leite Pereira Jardim, Count of Valenças, a jurist and member of parliament. From 1877 he made it a palace, working with painters of the day such as Columbano Bordalo Pinheiro, and added the garden and a tower looking over Lisbon and the river.
His heirs sold the palace in 1988 to the Simões de Almeida family. The architects Alberto Cruz and his son Manuel kept as much of the old house as they could, and it opened as a hotel in 1992. The stained glass in the Columbano and Eça de Queirós rooms is original. Embassies fill the streets around it, and guests over the years have included Paul McCartney, U2 and Robert De Niro.
- The gardens Subtropical planting, fountains, streams and a waterfall, with the outdoor pool and Le Pavillon set among them.
- The Tower Room A suite of 84 square metres on the seventh floor with two balconies, one of them in the palace turret.
- Rio Tejo Bar Big windows and a terrace facing the Tagus, with cocktails and afternoon tea from a list of thirty teas.
Rooms & suites
The old palace and the garden wing.
Rooms in the palace are each decorated differently, in art deco, colonial, Algarve or neoclassical style. The Garden Wing and the Villa, added in 2002, look over the pool and the river.
- Palace room Deluxe Palace Room 45 to 55 square metres on the fifth to seventh floors of the old palace, most with a jacuzzi or hydromassage bath. Rooms higher up have a balcony or veranda.
- Garden suite Garden Suite About 100 square metres over the garden or the pool, with a separate living room and a large balcony.
- Signature suite Royal Suite Conde de Valenças 145 square metres on the fifth floor, nineteenth-century decoration and a terrace over the garden, the river and the city. It can open into a two or three bedroom suite.
Dining
Lunch in the garden, tea by the river.
Restaurants and bars as listed by the hotel. Shown for information.
- Lapa Restaurant Mediterranean The main dining room, lunch and dinner
- Le Pavillon Salads, seafood, tapas By the outdoor pool, in summer
- Rio Tejo Bar Cocktails and afternoon tea Terrace over the Tagus
Good to know
Before you go.
- Spa Pools, sauna, Turkish bath and gym are free for hotel guests. Treatments use ELEMIS products.
- Pools The indoor pool is heated to 28 °C all year. The outdoor pool is usually heated from May to September, with a small children's pool beside it.
- Le Pavillon The garden restaurant opens for the summer season only.
Getting there
Flying to Lisbon.
Lisbon's Humberto Delgado airport is about twenty minutes away by car, our estimate, traffic permitting. Private jets land there too, or at Cascais aerodrome to the west, about half an hour by road by our estimate.
- Málaga 55 min
- Paris 2 h 15
- Geneva 2 h 20
- London 2 h 20
- New York 7 h 30 long-range jet
Questions
What guests ask first.
- How old is the Olissippo Lapa Palace?
- The house dates from 1870 and became the Count of Valenças's palace from 1877. It has been a hotel since 1992.
- Does the Lapa Palace have a pool?
- Two. An outdoor pool in the gardens, usually heated from May to September, and an indoor pool kept at 28 °C all year.
- Which airport is closest to the Lapa Palace?
- Lisbon Humberto Delgado, about twenty minutes by car by our estimate. Private jets can also use Cascais aerodrome.
- Can SkyCourtage arrange the flight to Lisbon?
- Yes. We arrange Business and First Class seats on scheduled airlines and private jet charter to Lisbon, with one final price, our margin included. The hotel is booked with the hotel or through our booking partner.
Also in Lisbon
Other hotels worth the trip.
- Four Seasons Hotel Ritz Lisbon Louis XVI and Art Deco interiors, a running track on the roof, and the starred CURA behind its own door.
- Bairro Alto Hotel An eighteenth-century building restored by Eduardo Souto de Moura, with a terrace looking over the Tagus.
- The One Palácio da Anunciada A palace of 1533 reworked by Jaime Beriestain, with a spa and pools indoors and out.
- Santiago de Alfama Nineteen rooms in a fifteenth-century palace built over Roman remains, restored by Luís Rebelo de Andrade.
-
Penha Longa Resort Three MICHELIN Keys, 204 rooms around a fourteenth-century monastery and chapel, and 27 holes of golf laid out by Robert Trent Jones Jr.
- Palácio Ludovice Wine Experience Hotel The house of João Frederico Ludovice, architect to King João V, now 61 rooms by Miguel Câncio Martins, with the bar down in the old cellar.
- Pestana Palace Lisboa The Marquês de Valle Flôr's nineteenth-century residence, a National Monument, opened as a hotel in 2001 inside a park of subtropical trees.
- Verride Palácio Santa Catarina Nineteen rooms and suites in an eighteenth-century palace by the Adamastor viewpoint, with its wooden ceilings and tiles kept and a bar on the roof.
- Hotel Avenida Palace José Luís Monteiro, who drew the façade of Rossio station next door, designed it; it opened in 1892 and has 82 rooms.
- Memmo Príncipe Real Reached by a narrow street and a short tunnel off Rua Dom Pedro V, 41 rooms and a terrace pool facing São Jorge Castle.
- Hotel Palácio do Governador Sixty rooms where the governor of the Belém Tower once lived, above Roman ruins, with the reception in the old chapel.
- Tivoli Avenida Liberdade Lisboa Receiving guests since 1933: 264 rooms, an Anantara spa and an outdoor pool in a semitropical garden.
- Valverde Lisboa Hotel & Garden Forty-eight rooms and suites on the avenue, kept in the manner of a London town house, with a garden and an outdoor pool.
- The Lumiares Hotel & Spa Forty-seven suites with their own kitchens in a restored eighteenth-century palace, and the Lumi restaurant on the roof.
- Corpo Santo Lisbon Historical Hotel Seventy-five rooms on Largo do Corpo Santo, and a small museum area for what the builders found during the works.
- The Ivens Hotel On Rua Capelo in Chiado, its rooms and bar decorated with macaws, beetles, parrots and tropical plants.
-
Valverde Sintra Palácio de Seteais An eighteenth-century palace with thirty rooms, its garden paths looking up to the Moorish Castle and Pena Palace.
- The Oitavos Each of the 143 rooms has a balcony over the Atlantic and the Oitavos Dunes course, and the spa is walled in glass.
- The Albatroz Hotel Three buildings above the Bay of Cascais, with a sea-view pool on the terrace and a bar looking over the bay.
Staying at Olissippo Lapa Palace?
Book the room, then the flight.
Rates and availability come from the hotel itself. For the journey to Lisbon, a Business or First Class seat or an aircraft of your own: tell us the date and we come back with one final price, our margin included.
Opens the hotel's own website. We have no arrangement with the hotel.