Baixa and Chiado

BOTH AREAS WERE NEARLY DESTROYED BY THE 1755 EARTHQUAKE. THEY WERE RESOWN FROM SCRATCH BASED ON NEW PLANS. FOR THE TOURIST, THIS IS WHERE LISBON BEGINS, EAGER TO REACH EVERYWHERE.

Before the earthquake, Lisbon’s Baixa already had more than enough history. Following the disaster, when the Marquês de Pombal redesigned the area as one of the very first models of earthquake-proof construction, it was dubbed “pombaline”. Saying that one is going “to the Baixa” is like knowing this is the centre of the world. The pedestrian Augusta Street is its single way, when coming from Terreiro do Paço and Ribeira das Naus, both restored and modernized. Roman catacombs lie under Rua Augusta. Above, rise four-storey buildings, ornamented with balconies and garrets, and stores at street-level. This walkway leads on to Rossio Square, as though promising that the entire city is planned as such, bordering on perfection.

Rua do Ouro runs parallel to Rua Augusta and halfway down the street stands Santa Justa Elevator, which could be Eiffel’s but is not. The elevator leads up to Largo do Carmo, the main stage of Portugal’s Carnation Revolution of 25 April 1974, which is adorned with a roofless convent transformed by the earthquake into an observatory of the stars. The Chiado neighbourhood presents itself here as if it were omnipresent. Bertrand Bookstore has been known since the 18th century, but it was in the 1800s that Chiado became Lisbon’s cultural epicentre. Cafés abound, starting with the Brasileira, where a bronze statue of Fernando Pessoa waiting at a table for his “bica” (expresso), with an empty seat beside him, offers tourists the chance to get their official tourist snap of Lisbon. The city’s Academies remain barely hidden, the animated discussions historically held between writers, artists and politicians can still be heard in the traditional cafés, the ghosts of artists live on and the streets sing and play more than they beg. Gastronomic diversity is the rule, while new hotels only prove that Chiado is the place to be, rather than pass through in a hurry, like a tourist who has stumbled on a hill and rolled down its slope. This locale, which once dreamed of being Paris in Lisbon, has finally chosen to be a sample of the world.

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