Heritage Avenida Libertade

Found at the town-centre Rossio end of Avenida da Liberdade, this 42-room hotel stands in a handsome period structure, previously inhabited by Lisbon's 18th Century herb shops. Being the first city of the Old World to experience the plethora of potions and remedies that could be found in the jungles of the Amazon, folk would come to this old building to find the newly imported remedies, herbs and spices.

The lobby pays testament to the building's history, with open-to-all medicine cabinets that are bursting with different types of tea - also an old colonial favourite of the Portuguese - giving off a wonderful ambience of period Portugal.

Features get decidedly modern once in the dark-wood and caramel toned rooms: flat-screen TV's, Molten Brown products and Wifi are standard. Bag a street-facing room over the Avenida, where double-glazed windows keep the noise at bay when required, and the balconies are the perfect spot for an afternoon ginjinha (cherry brandy) accompanied by the hum-and-whistle soundtrack of the city-centre.