Alfama was laid out before anyone had imagined a van. Streets turn into staircases without warning, house numbers follow an order only the postman has mastered, and a doorway that looked fine in a photo turns out to be narrower than the sofa. We work here often enough that none of this surprises us. It does mean an Alfama move gets planned differently from one in Alvalade, and the planning happens before you book rather than on the morning itself.
Most of Alfama sits inside the restricted-access zone for Lisbon's historic quarters. Entry is by an access card handed over together with the loading permit — the Dístico de Cargas e Descargas, valid one year, issued against a commercial registry certificate, the vehicle's registration document and a current roadworthiness certificate. That last requirement matters more than it sounds. A crew working off the books with a borrowed van cannot hold one, which is why they park further away and carry further. Reserving the kerb is a separate errand again. The licence to occupy public space comes from the Câmara Municipal de Lisboa; if the spaces sit in a zone EMEL manages, EMEL is paid afterwards. None of it is expensive. It is slow, and it has to be started days ahead rather than the night before.
Four and five storeys, most of them older than the idea of a lift. Ceilings are high, which is pleasant to live under and awkward to carry a wardrobe through, because the staircase turns tightly at every floor. It is the turn that traps furniture, almost never the flight itself.
Windows are small, so the hoist that works on the wider streets of Graça is rarely an option here. Doors are frequently original, and original means narrow. During the survey we measure the two or three pieces most likely to cause an argument — usually a sofa, a fridge and a double mattress. If something will not fit through your front door, you hear about it a week early, not with the item wedged halfway up the stairs.
The van parks where a van can park, and from there it is a shuttle. We walk the route once before touching anything, so nobody meets an unexpected step while carrying the heavy end of a bookcase.
For the eastern side, the nearest car parks are usually Portas do Sol or Campo das Cebolas; Chão do Loureiro sits closer to the castle. Two nearby options that look convenient on a map are not available to us at all — Pavilhão da Graça and Condomínio Graça are reserved for residents and local businesses.
Tram 28 runs along several of these streets. A van blocking that line is everyone's problem for the whole neighbourhood, not for us alone, so we work around its timetable rather than against it.
The distance from the van to your door, and the number of steps along it. Nothing else comes close. A second-floor flat twenty metres from a legal parking spot costs less to move than a ground-floor flat at the end of a hundred-metre lane with two staircases in it.
For the same volume, Alfama sits at the upper end of our range. Expect that, and expect to see it in writing before you commit. If the street turns out easier than the map suggested, the quoted price still holds — it does not travel upward either.