Lisbon

There are few cityscapes as dazzling as that of Lisbon (Lisboa). Built on a switchback of hills above the broad Tejo estuary, its quarters are linked by an amazing network of cobbled streets with outrageous gradients, up which crank trams and funiculars. For visitors, it’s hard not to see the city as an urban funfair, a sense heightened by the brooding castle poised above the Alfama district’s medieval streets, the fantasy Manueline architecture of Belém, the vibrant mosaics of the central Rossio square, and the adventurous contemporary architecture in the Parque das Nações. Gentler than any port or capital should expect to be, laid-back and easy to get around, Lisbon is immediately likeable.

For much of the last century, the city stood apart from the European mainstream, an isolation that ended abruptly with the 1974 Revolution and the subsequent integration into the EU just over a decade later. Over the past hundred years, central Lisbon’s population has more than doubled to over a million, one tenth of all Portuguese, with numbers boosted considerably after the Revolution by the vast influx of refugees – retornados – from Portugal’s former African colonies. The retornados imposed a heavy burden on a strained economy, but their overall integration is one of the modern country’s chief triumphs. Portuguese Brazilians and Africans have had a significant effect on the capital’s culture, and alongside the traditional fado clubs of its Bairro Alto and Alfama quarters, Lisbon now has superb Latin and African bands and a panoply of international restaurants and bars.

The 1755 Great Earthquake destroyed many of Lisbon’s most historic buildings. The Romanesque Sé (cathedral) and the Moorish walls of the Castelo de São Jorge are fine early survivors, however, and there is one building from Portugal’s sixteenth-century Golden Age – the extraordinary Mosteiro dos Jerónimos at Belém – that is the equal of any in the country. Glimpses of pre-quake opulence are also visible in the old Moorish hillside of Alfama, which survived the destruction and is perhaps the most fascinating part of the city, with its winding lanes and anarchic stairways. The heart of the city is the lower town, the Baixa, which was entirely rebuilt after the earthquake and is Europe’s first great example of visionary urban planning. At the Baixa’s southern end, opening onto the Rio Tejo, is the broad, arcaded Praça do Comércio, with its grand triumphal arch. At the Baixa’s northern end – linked to the Praça do Comércio by almost any street you care to take – stands Praça Dom Pedro IV, popularly known as Rossio, the main square since medieval times and the only part of the rebuilt city to remain in its original place, slightly off-centre in the symmetrical design. Rossio merges with Praça da Figueira and Praça dos Restauradores and it is these squares, filled with cafés and lively with buskers, business people, and streetwise hawkers, which form the hub of Lisbon’s daily activity. At night the focus shifts to the Bairro Alto, or upper town, high above and to the west of the Baixa, and best reached by funicular (the Elevador da Glória or Elevador da Bica) or by the great street elevator, the Elevador de Santa Justa. Between the two districts, halfway up the hill, is Chiado, Lisbon’s most elegant shopping area.

From Rossio, the main, palm-lined Avenida da Liberdade runs north to the city’s central park, Parque Eduardo VII, beyond which spreads the rest of the modern city: the Fundação Gulbenkian, a combined museum and cultural complex with superb collections of ancient and modern art, is to the north, as is the zoo, bullring and the famous football stadia. No stay in Lisbon should neglect the futuristic Oceanário, one of Europe’s largest oceanariums, in the Parque das Nações, 5km to the east of the city centre, or the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, effectively Portugal’s national art gallery, close to the rejuvenated docks at Alcântara. Also not to be missed is the Berardo Collection, with some of the best contemporary art around. Perhaps more than anything, though, it’s the day-to-day life on display in the streets and squares that makes the city so enjoyable – from the shoe shiners of the Rossio to the multitude of Art Nouveau shops and cafés.

Brief history

The defining event of Lisbon’s history was the Great Earthquake, which was felt as far away as Jamaica and struck Lisbon at 9.30am on November 1 (All Saints’ Day) 1755, when most of the city’s population was at Mass. Within the space of ten minutes there had been three major tremors and the candles of a hundred church altars had started fires that raged throughout the capital. A vast tidal wave swept the seafront, where refugees were seeking shelter, and, in all, 40,000 of the 270,000 population died. The destruction of the city shocked the continent, prompting Voltaire, who wrote an account of it in his novel Candide, into an intense debate with Rousseau on the operation of providence. For Portugal, and for the capital, it was a disaster that in retrospect seemed to seal an age.

Before the earthquake, eighteenth-century Lisbon had been arguably the most active port in Europe. The city had been prosperous since Roman, perhaps even Phoenician, times. In the Middle Ages, as Moorish Lishbuna, it thrived on its wide links with the Arab world, while exploiting the rich territories of the Alentejo and Algarve to the south. The country’s Reconquest by the Christians in 1147 was an early and dubious triumph of the Crusades, its one positive aspect being the appearance of the first true Portuguese monarch Afonso Henriques. It was not until 1255, however, that Lisbon took over from Coimbra as the capital.

Over the following centuries Lisbon was twice at the forefront of European development and trade, on a scale that is hard to envisage today. The first phase came with the great Portuguese discoveries of the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, such as Vasco da Gama’s opening of the sea route to India. The second was in the opening decades of the eighteenth century, when the colonized Brazil yielded both gold and diamonds. These phases were the great ages of Portuguese patronage. The sixteenth century was dominated by Dom Manuel I, under whom the flamboyant national architectural style known as Manueline developed. Lisbon takes its principal monuments – the tower and monastery at Belém – from this era. The eighteenth century, more extravagant but with less brilliant effect, gave centre stage to Dom João V, best known as the obsessive builder of Mafra, which he created in response to Philip II’s El Escorial in Spain.

In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the city was more notable for its political upheavals – from the assassination of Carlos I in 1908 to the Revolution in 1974 – than for any architectural legacy, though the Art Nouveau movement made its mark on the capital. In the last two decades, however, Lisbon has once more echoed to the sounds of reconstruction on a scale not seen for two hundred years. The influx of EU cash for economic regeneration in the 1980s was followed by works associated with Lisbon’s status as European City of Culture in 1994, its hosting of the Expo in 1998 and the European Football Championships of 2004. These events boosted the transport infrastructure, bequeathing new rail and metro lines and Europe’s longest bridge – with another river crossing under construction to the north. The historic bairros (districts) and riverfront have also been given makeovers. If this nonstop rebuilding and renovation has somewhat diminished the erstwhile lost-in-time feel of the city, it has also injected a wave of optimism that has made Lisbon one of Europe’s most exciting capitals.

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