The catch at Palácio Príncipe Real

For 9 to 11 February 2027, the Cosy, the entry category at 24 to 35 m², was 550 euros a night and the Grand Suite 1,100; for 20 to 22 April 2027 the same rooms were 595 and 1,250. In the Cosy that is 16 to 23 euros a square metre a night before you have chosen a view. There is one rate, flexible with breakfast, so no cheaper non-refundable price to fall back on, and Lisbon's city tax of 4 euros per guest per night, for up to seven nights, goes on top.

The money buys the house, the garden and the staff rather than facilities. Paz, the wellness area, is two treatment rooms, with 60-minute massages from 100 to 145 euros, and the hotel's own pages list no gym, sauna or steam room. What the rate includes is more generous than usual: breakfast à la carte, a minibar that is free and refilled daily, and no service charge.

The hotel calls it an Asian-style infinity pool, warmed by solar panels on the roof, and says it is a pool you can actually swim in; guests report it running cool on grey days. The hotel does not publish its size, and its own terms describe a reduced depth, ban diving, note that there is no lifeguard and keep the right to close it at any time.

The water is for residents only; the terms say non-guests may not use it. The garden around it is another matter. EVOO serves outside when the sun is out and takes bookings from non-residents when it has room, smoking is allowed in the garden, cigars included, the neighbours' windows overlook it, and a small car park on grass grids sits inside it. After 11pm the hotel can refuse access to the garden, and it is to be cleared by midnight.

No two rooms are alike, which is the charm and the risk. The hotel sells its Signature rooms on spectacular ceilings or exceptional space, one or the other, and says only some of them have a free-standing bath. Of the Signature Suites, which include the former ballroom and the father's study, the ballroom is the one without a garden view. Some Cosy rooms were the family's children's bedrooms.

The garden side is the calm one: the hotel fitted a second set of double-glazed windows along the Rua de São Marçal frontage and double doors to every bedroom on the first and second floors. But neither a ceiling nor a side of the house is something you can book. The terms say the hotel will not normally guarantee a specific room, so the one you saw online is a request, not a reservation.

The hotel's own terms are frank about the building. It keeps steep original staircases, raised steps into some bathrooms and, in places, slight steps or slopes into the rooms; the garden access to one room, 211, is a steep spiral staircase that you use at your own risk. The one room the hotel describes as accessible is in the Dream Garden category.

It is also a house that would rather you left the air conditioning off. It asks guests to use it sparingly, relies on thick stone walls, shutters and, on the top floor, ceiling fans, and cuts the heating or cooling automatically when a terrace or garden door is open. Outside, the hills start at the door: Praça Luís de Camões in Chiado is a 17-minute walk, on a route that climbs in both directions.

The palace takes no guests under 16, bookings must be made by someone of 18 or over, and no room, suites included, takes more than two people, so there is no third bed for a friend or a teenager. Pets are not allowed.

Food from outside is out too. The terms forbid take-away food and drink anywhere on the premises, garden included, and delivery riders are turned away at the door. And the one rate is flexible only up to a point: cancel seven days or more before arrival and it costs nothing, but a night's deposit is charged six days out and is then non-refundable, and a cancellation within 24 hours, a no-show or an early departure is charged in full.