Miradouro de Santa Luzia: Tiles, Knights and a Lost City

Why is it significant?

Walk under the pergola, where bougainvillea spills purple over the columns, and lean on the old wall at the edge. Below you the roofs of Alfama fall away in terracotta steps towards the river, and the ships on the Tagus look like toys.

Key Facts

Open the walk

Walk under the pergola, where bougainvillea spills purple over the columns, and lean on the old wall at the edge. Below you the roofs of Alfama fall away in terracotta steps towards the river, and the ships on the Tagus look like toys.

The little church beside the garden is Santa Luzia, and it has an unexpected owner. It is linked to the Order of Malta, the Knights Hospitaller, who have had a presence in Portugal since the Middle Ages. The terrace itself sits on top of a stretch of the old Moorish wall, so you are standing on the city's former edge.

Now find the tile panels on the church's outer wall. One of them shows the great riverside square of Lisbon, Terreiro do Paço, as it looked before 1755, with the royal palace and its tower still standing. It is one of the few chances you will ever have to see the city the earthquake erased. Remember that image... if you walk the Baixa later, you will stand exactly where that palace stood, and find nothing of it left.

Another panel shows the siege of 1147, Christian knights storming the Moorish walls, and among the scenes is the death of Martim Moniz in the castle gate. It was painted centuries after the event, so take it as the city telling its own legend in blue and white.

Come back here at sunset if you can. The light turns the river copper, the fado from somebody's radio drifts up the hill, and the yellow tram rattles past behind you as if it had all the time in the world. Locals and visitors share the wall in a kind of silent agreement. Now cross back past the church and walk downhill along the tram line towards the cathedral, then turn into Rua de São Mamede, where a Roman theatre is hiding behind a fence.