Sunday 23 August 2026 – We had a date with Carlos, who would be our guide for a walking tour of Lisbon, at 10am, so we didn’t have to leap out of bed with too much alacrity. The hotel has a small restaurant for providing breakfast, and I’d nominated 0830 as the likely time of our arrival. It was a buffet breakfast, with many good things on it, which I largely ignored for a chorizo sandwich. The major disappointment with it was a complete lack of any Earl Grey tea we could snaffle to supplement our supplies, but we thought we might be able to find some in the shops; otherwise it was a decent and ample breakfast.
Since we had time spare before our date with Carlos, I took the opportunity to walk along to Rua Augusta to see if I could capture some of its charm, and particularly the very typical Lisbon use of mosaics on the pedestrian areas, before it got all full of people again. One thing I remember very clearly from previous visits to Lisbon is the very charming use of black-and-white tiles to make patterns in the pavements.
These are evidence simultaneously of the effort that must have gone into laying them in the first place, and the lack of maintenance in recent times. Rua Augusta, though, notable as it is, is mosaically in a good place.
Since that put me near the Praça do Comércio again, I took the further opportunity to get some photos there, too.
We met Carlos at the hotel and immediately headed back towards the Praça do Comércio, which gave him the chance to explain some of the history behind what we were seeing. Had we arrived in 1756, the scene would have been one of utter devastation, since there had been a major earthquake (estimated at 7.7 magnitude and only some 40km to the south) on November 1, 1755. November 1 is All Saints Day, and many people were at church, leaving candles lit for the occasion – in wooden houses. So buildings fell and fires raged. As well, a tsunami hit, which completely wiped out the square we were standing on and all the buildings around it – 85% of Lisbon’s buildings were destroyed.
The king, Joseph 1, and his prime minister, the Marquis of Pombal, survived the earthquake and set about rebuilding the city. The buildings we see around the square today are this Pombaline legacy – architecturally simple and with an elegance directly influenced by Parisian architecture. All the ruins behind the square were flattened and the streets rebuilt on a grid pattern. The yellow colour of the buildings denotes their original purpose of being government buildings. Other colours were used for other functions or in other quarters of the city, like this one.
Apparently, Praça do Comércio spent much of the 1990s as a car park!
Carlos then took us generally northwards, past the Elevador de Santa Justa
a wonderful structure designed by a pupil of Gustav Eiffel to address the very hilly nature of Lisbon, now sadly closed ever since a tragic accident with one of the city’s distinctive funiculars, which meant that they, and the elevador, had to be closed for “maintenance”, although it would appear that neglect was a major contributor to the disaster.
We continued northwards to another major square, the Praça Dom Pedro IV.
You can see old Peter the Fourth above the trees there. He was a Good King, having managed to achieve great things (recapturing Lisbon from his hated brother Miguel, establishing the monarchy as constitutional) before dying young. His statue
dominates the square, but Carlos told us a story that the statue might not actually be of Peter, but of Maximilian 1 of Mexico. The story goes that Italian statue makers had created a statue of Max, but he died so they offered it to Lisbon at a bargain price; it was mounted very high so that the people couldn’t see that it wasn’t actually Peter. A close up of the face
does show a visage resembling Max rather than Peter, it must be said.
We continued northwards towards the Jewish and Moorish quarters, in doing so passing remnants of the old walls of the city,
and the ruins of the Carmo Convent,
a 14th-century Carmelite convent which fell into ruin during the 1755 earthquake.
We were heading into the more working class areas of Lisbon, and it showed;
it’s even more dilapidated than the downtown areas. Among the general downbeat air, though, can be found some of the decorative architectural flourishes typical of the city.
as well as hints about its topology.
The decorative tiling seen elsewhere can be seen here, too, particularly on the buildings in the better-off areas;
tiles are an excellent architectural tool, since they don’t fade like paintwork does, and also can be replaced piecemeal should some break or fall.
The Moorish areas are Mouraria and Alfama and are distinguished by, among other things, the narrow and labyrinthine street layout.
This is the area where the distinctively mournful musical style of Fado is widely said to have originated. The street above features street art depicting many of the most influential figures in the early 20th-century development of Fado.
These two, and others, are celebrated in artworks along this street,
and there are other artworks dedicated to the tradition, too.
We started to see increasing amounts of street art in this area.
and Carlos led us up streets and staircases featuring a bewildering varety of art works.
Much of it sprang from a project to address mental health and community spirit.
and some of the work was of immensely high quality,
and some artists had contributed multiple images, like Gnomo (who painted the other chameleon, above).
The area where this street art can be found is called Graça, and the steps we climbed led to its church.
We looked in, but a service was under way, so we didn’t stay long.
Just outside the church is a splendid miradouro (viewpoint), giving a great view of the castle
and an overview of the city.
At the bottom of the picture you can see the one remaining functional funicular, the Graça funicular, which is more modern than the ones that are currently “in maintenance”, albeit run by the same company.
Around this area can be seen some larger-scale street artworks, many of which have the theme of female empowerment (a relatively recent concept in Portugal, it has to be said).
At this point the rain, which had been sporadic up to that point, became really heavy.
so we stopped in at a charming little coffee shop, Condes da Praia,
where we treated ourselves to some traditional Portuguese pastel de nata – delicious custard tarts before calling it a day and catching a cab back to the hotel.
Carlos had done a splendid job of showing us some of the parts of Lisbon we wouldn’t otherwise have seen, and we’re delighted to learn that he will also be our guide in Sintra, where we travel in a couple of days’ time.
We relaxed for a while back at the hotel until housekeeping ushered us out so they could tidy the room. Since by that stage the sun was beginning to shine through, we decided to see if we could get up to the top of the triumphal arch at the base of Rua Augusta so we headed that way. It was clear, from the aroma in the air, that the amount of rain we’d had during the thunderstorm was more than Lisbon’s drains were prepared to deal with.
The entry fee for the arch is €5 per head, and for this you get a lift ride almost all the way up, which is great. There are still 74 steps to complete the journey, but that’s a lot fewer than it might have been. And the view you get from the top is wonderful, even if the aroma from the street was still perceptible.
I had particularly wanted to be able to show the patterns of the mosaics along Rua Augusta, and this was the perfect viewpoint. I was very taken with the reflections of sunlight from the windows in this picture.
We also took the opportunity to look into the church near the hotel which has the fantastic façade we’d seen yesterday, the church of Nossa Senhora da Conceição Velha.
This picture makes it look quite plain, but it isn’t. The altar is quite something,
the ceiling is beautiful
and there are many carved figures around, some with very lifelike features.
They’ve also taken some of the guesswork (and the reliance on donations) out of setting candles.
We finished our wanderings at Pata Negra, a Portuguese Tapas and Steakhouse, which served us a very fine meal (and G&Ts!), before heading back to the hotel.
So, thanks to Carlos we’ve learned a lot about Lisbon that we didn’t know and seen a lot we probably would have missed. The weather prospects tomorrow morning are conducive to taking a late breakfast, but we can wander about a bit more during the afternoon. Who knows what we may stumble across? Check back soon to find out!
