Explore Lisbon

The Rua Augusta Arch is the triumphal arch on the north side of Praça do Comércio, planned after the 1755 earthquake and completed in 1875 to a design by Veríssimo José da Costa. A sculpture group by Célestin Anatole Calmels crowns it; a lift and stairs lead past an exhibition in the clock room to a terrace above the Baixa and the Tagus.

The National Museum of Contemporary Art, known as the Museu do Chiado, was created in 1911 in part of the former Convent of São Francisco in Chiado. Reopened in 1994 in spaces adapted by Jean-Michel Wilmotte, it shows Portuguese painting and sculpture from 1850 onwards, by artists such as Columbano Bordalo Pinheiro, Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso and Almada Negreiros.

Praça do Comércio is a square of about 175 by 175 metres on the Tagus waterfront, laid out after the 1755 earthquake on the site of the destroyed Ribeira Palace as part of the Marquis of Pombal's rebuilding of the Baixa. Arcaded buildings frame three sides, with an equestrian statue of King José I in the centre and the Rua Augusta Arch to the north.

The Beer Museum occupies arcaded rooms in the east wing of Praça do Comércio, alongside a restaurant and terrace run by the same house. Its interactive route follows brewing from the monasteries of medieval Europe through the industrial revolution to Portuguese craft beer, and the rooms are decorated with work by the painter Júlio Pomar.

Lisboa Story Centre is a history exhibition opened in 2012 in the east wing of Praça do Comércio. With multimedia sets, models and films it follows the city from its mythical founding by Ulysses through the age of the voyages of discovery to the earthquake of 1 November 1755 and the rebuilding of the Baixa under the Marquis of Pombal.

The Codfish History Interpretation Centre fills two floors of the east tower pavilion on Praça do Comércio. Rooms with films, animations and a dory simulation follow Portuguese cod fishing off Newfoundland and Greenland and the White Fleet of the Second World War, then turn to the place of bacalhau in Portuguese cooking.

The Carmo Convent was founded in 1389 by the constable Nuno Álvares Pereira for the Carmelite order. Its Gothic church lost its vaults in the 1755 earthquake and was never rebuilt, so the arches of the nave stand open to the sky. Since 1864 the ruins have housed the Carmo Archaeological Museum, with tombs, sculpture and finds from prehistory on.

Lisbon Cathedral, the Sé, is the city's oldest church, begun in 1147 after Afonso Henriques took Lisbon from the Moors. Its Romanesque west front has two crenellated towers and a rose window; earthquakes, including that of 1755, led to Gothic and Baroque rebuilding. The visit includes the high choir, the treasury and the ambulatory.

Rossio, officially Praça de D. Pedro IV, has been one of the main squares of Lisbon's Baixa since the Middle Ages, the scene of markets, bullfights, revolts and the Inquisition's autos-da-fé. Its wave-patterned Portuguese pavement surrounds the 1874 column of King Pedro IV and two bronze fountains, with the D. Maria II National Theatre on the north side.

Igreja de São Roque was the first Jesuit church in Portugal: its first stone was laid in 1555 and it was redesigned in 1565 as a single hall built for preaching. It survived the 1755 earthquake largely intact and passed to the Santa Casa da Misericórdia. Its Chapel of St John the Baptist was made in Rome in the 1740s and shipped to Lisbon.

São Jorge Castle stands on the hill above Alfama and the Baixa, on a site fortified since at least the 2nd century BC and taken from the Moors in 1147. It later served as a royal palace and barracks. Visitors walk its battlements and towers, see an archaeological site with Iron Age and Moorish remains, and look out over the city and the Tagus.

The Church of Santa Cruz do Castelo stands in the Castelo quarter against the inner wall of São Jorge Castle's citadel, on the site of a mosque converted after the Christian conquest of Lisbon in 1147. The present single-nave church is the rebuilding by João Paulo after the 1755 earthquake, and visitors can climb its bell tower.

Miradouro de Santa Luzia is a terrace viewpoint beside the Church of Santa Luzia in Alfama, looking over the rooftops of the old quarter to the Tagus. Its pergola is hung with bougainvillea, and its south wall carries two azulejo panels, one of Praça do Comércio before the 1755 earthquake and one of the Christian attack on São Jorge Castle.

The Graça Convent is an Augustinian church and convent on the Graça hill, founded in 1271 and rebuilt in a late Baroque style after the 1755 earthquake; Afonso de Albuquerque was buried in its chancel in 1566. A ticketed route leads through the upper choir and cloisters to a rooftop terrace beside the Graça viewpoint.

The Monastery of São Vicente de Fora was founded around 1147 by Afonso Henriques outside the city walls; the present Mannerist church was built from 1582 under Philip II of Spain. The monastery holds 18th-century azulejo panels and the pantheon of the Braganza kings, and its roof terrace looks out over Alfama and the Tagus.

The National Pantheon occupies the Church of Santa Engrácia in Alfama, a Baroque building on a Greek-cross plan designed by João Antunes and begun in 1682. Its dome was completed only in the 20th century; since 1966 it has held the tombs of presidents, writers, the fado singer Amália Rodrigues and Eusébio, and its terrace looks over the Tagus.

The Estrela Basilica was begun in 1779 for Queen Maria I, who had vowed to build a church if she bore an heir, and was the first church dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Its white facade has twin bell towers and a large dome visible across western Lisbon. Inside, grey, pink and yellow marble lines the floor and walls, and the queen's tomb lies in the transept.

Immersivus Gallery stages digital projection shows inside the Mãe d'Água das Amoreiras, the vaulted reservoir at the end of the Águas Livres Aqueduct, begun by Carlos Mardel in 1746 and finished in 1834. Images are projected onto the stone vaults and pillars around the 7.5-metre-deep water tank; the building is part of the EPAL Water Museum.

The Museum of the Orient opened in 2008 in a former cod cold-storage warehouse on the Alcântara waterfront, converted by the Fundação Oriente. Its collections cover the Portuguese presence in Asia and Asian religious and performing arts, including Japanese screens, Indonesian shadow puppets and the Kwok On collection of masks and costumes.

The Águas Livres Aqueduct was built between 1731 and 1799 on the orders of King João V to carry spring water from the Belas area into Lisbon by gravity. Its arcade across the Alcântara valley is 941 metres long with 35 arches, including the Arco Grande, and came through the 1755 earthquake. The Museu da Água opens the walk along its top.