North of the Rossio train station along the beautiful tree-lined Avenida da Liberdade there’s a small funicular that connects to the Miradouro de São Pedro de Alcântara on the hill above.
There are a number of such funiculars around Lisbon, but many are currently closed or under repair. This one was originally built in 1885 and electrified in 1914.
There are two parallel tracks, and two cars. One sits at the top of the hill, and the other sits at the bottom. Every 5 minutes or so they switch places, passing each other around the midpoint.
There was a bit of a wait to ride the funicular, and the hill can be walked in only a few minutes if your knees are strong, so we took that option. The walk also allowed for photos of the surrounding area, which has been turned into something of an open-air gallery for graffiti artists.
Further up the hill, large blank surfaces with platforms beneath had been set up specifically to allow street artists to do their thing.
At the very top is yet another lovely miradouro viewpoint, this one looking back across at our favourite Miradouro da Graça and the Castelo.
At one end of the terrace was a small festival of food and beer stalls, many of them selling sausages, pork sandwiches, and other grilled meats. Like many of the things we’ve come across in Lisbon it was there without much signage or fanfare, and everything was relaxed and low-key.
Not hungry enough for so much carne de porco we instead found a small kiosk café on the lower level of the terrace and had a couple small imperial beers, just as the temperature started to drop for the evening.
