Lisbon - Avenida da Liberdade and around Travel Guides | Lisbon | Sub Regions | Lisbon - Avenida da Liberdade and around

This elegant tree-lined boulevard (inaugurated in 1886) is to the city what the Champs-Elysées is to Paris. It quickly became a show ground of bourgeois tastes and tendencies, a place where Lisbon’s artists and aristocrats would saunter, until the expansion of the city and the creation of the Estados Novas in the early 20th century usurped its elitist pretensions. Beginning at Praça dos Restauradores, it’s an unabashed paean to consumerism, catering to Lisbon’s upwardly mobile denizens with designer shopping, airline offices, plush hotels, elegant restaurants, charming art nouveau cafés, a clutch of stellar museums and the Cinemateca, Lisbon’s national film theatre.

Wandering off the main thoroughfare, streets pirouette into leafy squares and spidery alleyways, revealing more of Lisbon’s magical realism. Gravity-defying elevadores lead to Renaissance splendours, statues to miracle-working doctors and jazz bars.The raffish quarters of Anjos and Intendente, red-light districts, are best avoided.

Sights

The Avenida has always been Lisbon’s front room, an architectural time line climbing northwards to the lush expanses of Parque Eduardo VII. At number 180 the dome of the old egg-yolk yellow Tivoli cinema, constructed in 1920 with Parisian elegance by Raul Lino, stands delightfully juxtaposed to the vanguard Bauhaus Hotel Vitória, at number 168, designed by Cassiano Branco. At number 266, the Diário de Notícias building bears the hallmark of one of the most influential Portuguese architects of the 20th century, Porfirio Pardal Monteiro, while at 185, the Tivoli Lisboa hotel symbolized the dawn of 1950s modernist tendancies.

Halfway along the Avenida, behind Tivoli Lisboa, cinema lovers should visit the Cinemateca Portuguesa, Rua Barata Salgueiro, 39, T 21 359 62 00, http://www.cinemateca.pt, free, housed in a lovely restored pastel-pink mansion. Small exhibits of late 19th-century camera equipment are displayed around the grand central staircase which leads to a rather over-the-top art nouveau tiled courtyard.

Despite the weekday urban malaise of constant traffic, single minded retail frenzy, and a low-level red light district, on Sundays the Avenida retains its haughty French aura with old men reading papers on shady benches and well-heeled families and laissez faire tourists relaxing on the terraces of ornate cafés.

The Elevador da Lavra finishes its steep ascent on Rua Câmera Pestana in the district of Torel, an aloof neighbourhood of shady, tree-lined avenues flanked with neo-Renaissance mansions, fronted with manicured lawns. Turning left onto Travessa do Torel, a gate opens out onto the Jardim de Torel, a Pre-Raphaelite Eden where towering palms seem to hang from the hillside, framing one of Lisbon’s least visited and most breathtaking miradoures. Rua de Júlio de Andrade, leads to Campo dos Mártires da Patria, a large concrete square with a small pond and café overshadowed by university faculty buildings. In the centre of the square stands the statue of Portuguese doctor Sousa Martins, eerily surrounded by gravestones, candles, photographs and flowers. ‘Miraculous Martins’ (1843-1897), revered for his unremitting dedication to saving the lives of poor children, committed suicide when he discovered that he was dying of tuberculosis. Relatives of the sick and needy come in droves to pray for his saintly intervention. To explore some of the least-touristed and most charming backstreets with their tile-encrusted houses festooned with laundry and bright bougainvillea, head south along Calçada de Santa Ana towards Largo de São Domingos. A plaque on Rua de Martim Vaz marks the birthplace of Amália Rodrigues.

Rua Rosa Araújo, 41, T 21 354 78 92. Mon-Sat 1300-1730, closed Sun. E5. Good multi-lingual information, very helpful, knowledgeable staff. Metro Rotunda, Marquês de Pombal.

One of Lisbon’s most underrated museums, the former private residence of António Medeiros e Almeida, houses an outstanding collection of 17th- to 20th-century fine arts. The priceless artefacts, displayed in 25 rooms, range from porcelain, furniture and ceramics to silverware, paintings and sculpture. There are portraits by George Romney (1734-1802), landscapes by Thomas Gainsborough (1727- 88) and scenes of Lisbon by Portuguese artist Carlos Botelho (1899- 1982). Of most interest is the collection of 18th- and 19th-century furniture, including the works of François Linke – the most influential and celebrated furniture maker of the late 19th century – a Louis XIV-style cabinet with strong art nouveau influences and a long case clock in rosewood with ormolu mounts and glass marble. Look out for the 18th-century Louis XV commode by master cabinet maker Pierre Roussel (1723-82), in laquered oak, marble and bronze, which was taken from the Palais Rose in Paris – the Gestapo headquarters in France – to Germany by Goering where it was sold to an art dealer.

In the Sala das Pratas (Silver Room), there is a dinner service engraved with ‘N’ said to have belonged to Napoleon Bonaparte and gleaming Regency period silverware by Paul Storr (1792- 1838). The Sala do Lago (Lake Room) contains marble and gilded bronze 18th-century wall fountains from the Palace of Versailles and 18th-century azulejo tile panels. The Sala dos Relógios (Clock Room) has an ornate long case clock by Thomas Tompion (1639-1713), one of the most important English clock makers of the 17th-18th century. Priceless porcelain from the Han dynasty (206 BC) and rare pieces from the Qing dynasty (18th century) are displayed in the Sala das Porcelanas (Porcelain Room).

Metro Rato.

A five-minute walk along Rua das Amoreiras from the chaotic traffic fuelled nexus of Largo Rato, leads to Praça das Amoreiras (Mulberry Square). This delightful square, framed by the arches of the Aquaducto das Águas Livres, is decorated with crumbling azulejo tiles, its chunky pillars propping up cavorting teenagers. an An amazing feat of engineering, which even withstood the 1755 earthquake, it stretches 68 km, partly underground, and took 20 years to build (finally completed in 1729). The amoreiras were planted by the Marquês de Pombal and during the 18th century the square was home to a silk factory. The Mãe d’Água water reservoir was built in 1834 to collect water for the public fountains in the city.

Praça das Amoreiras, 58, T 21 388 00 44, fasvs@fasvs.pt 1200-2000, closed Tue and public holidays. 1000-1800 Sun. E2.50.

This small, often overlooked gallery exhibits the work of two of Portugal’s most renowned artists: Maria Helena Vieira da Silva (1908-92) and Hungarian Arpad Szenes (1897-1985). Born in Lisbon, Vieira da Silva moved to Paris in 1928 where she studied sculpture in the studio of Bourdelle. She met Szenes, who was already an acclaimed painter and member of the Second School of Paris and they married in 1930. Exhibiting for the first time in Paris in 1933, Vieira da Silva was soon at the vanguard of European art, creating a buzz with her innovative techniques.

The exhibition begins with two self portraits of the artists, which reveal their different styles and personalities – the dark colours and severe lines of introspective Vieira da Silva and the colourful liberated strokes of the extrovert Szenes. Vieira da Silva concentrated on expressionist urban themes, brooding grey cityscapes which evoke a claustrophobic, mechanized world. The death of her father as a child had affected her greatly and the artist’s feelings of confronting a closed door, which only death could open, is a recurring theme. Le Bataille des Rouges et des Bleus (1953) and Le Cataclysme (1954) are two of the collection’s highlights.

By contrast, Szenes luminous landscapes, including the ethereal Etude Mer (1979) and Gaviotas (1977), exude calmness and a sense of well being. In the old building there are examples of Szenes’ lesser-known works from the 1930s, including Enfant au-cerf- volant (1935) which reveals his earlier surrealist tendancies and in particular the influence of Miró.

The upper floors of the gallery are often used for temporary exhibitions featuring artists who were profoundly influential on Vieira da Silva, including, in 2003, a retrospective of Marc Chagall.

Parque Eduardo VII, T 21 388 22 78. Oct-Mar 0900-1630, Apr-Sep 0900-1730. Estufas E1.50.

At the top of the Avenida, Praça Marquês de Pombal is surrounded by Lisbon’s worst traffic headache. In the centre of the square towers the eponymous autocrat, bombastically admiring his handiwork – downtown Lisbon. Spreading behind the square is Lisbon’s largest park, named after English king, Edward VII, who visited Lisbon in 1903. The park’s northern reaches are the best place to begin exploring, where a viewing platform framed by austere columns and a 1997 sculpture by João Cutileiro celebrating the 1974 revolution, provides sweeping views.

Surrounding the formally laid out garden of topiary and tamed foliage, hilly verges and tree-lined pathways meander among shady glades and picnic areas. The highlight of the park, on the western side, is the Estufa Quente e Fria, (Hot and Cold greenhouse), a verdant grotto under an oriental bamboo roof.

On the opposite side of the park is the Pavilhão dos Deportes, renamed the Pavilhão Carlos Lopes in honour of one of the figureheads of Portuguese and world athletics. It’s worth a look for its beautiful façade encrusted with a profusion of azulejo tile panels. Just north is the Restaurante Botequim do Rei, whose terrace café, serving drinks and light meals, is a lovely place to relax. Head west along Rua Joaquim António de Aguiar for one of the purported architectural truimphs of Portuguese modernism. In 1991, on Rua Castilho, 40, acclaimed architect Henrique Chicó fused the original turn-of-the-century building with a soaring glass high-rise.

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