Chiado

Chiado is the slope between the Baixa and Bairro Alto, rebuilt after 1755 on the Pombaline grid and made in the nineteenth century into the city's shopping and intellectual quarter - the Brasileira café where Fernando Pessoa sat, with his bronze figure at a table outside; the Bertrand bookshop on Rua Garrett, trading since 1732 and recognised as the oldest operating bookshop in the world; the São Carlos opera house; the Camões and Fernando Pessoa associations; the ruins of the Carmo convent above. In August 1988 a fire started in the Grandella department store and spread to eighteen buildings across several blocks, eleven of them lost entirely, killing two people. The reconstruction was directed by Álvaro Siza and took two decades, keeping the Pombaline facades and street pattern while rebuilding behind them, which is why the quarter looks continuous but is substantially new inside.

History

The area has been lived in since Roman times, and in 1373-1375 King Ferdinand I built a new wall that took in part of it, with its main gate, the Portas de Santa Catarina, in today's Chiado Square. After the 1755 earthquake it was rebuilt under Pombal's plan, the São Carlos opera house opened in 1792, and shops such as Paris em Lisboa, opened in 1888, made it Lisbon's favourite shopping quarter; on 25 August 1988 a fire spread through 18 of its buildings (Wikipedia, Chiado).

Highlights

• A Brasileira - the café associated with Pessoa, with his bronze at a table outside.
• Bertrand - the bookshop trading since 1732, recognised as the world's oldest.
• The 1988 fire - eighteen buildings hit and eleven lost, and Siza's twenty-year reconstruction behind kept facades.
• The theatres - São Carlos opera and the surrounding cultural institutions.

When to go

Year-round. Two to three hours. Evenings for the theatres and bars; mornings for the shops without crowds.

What to expect

Very crowded, and the Pessoa statue has a permanent queue for photographs. Café prices on Rua Garrett are high for what is served. Steep streets and slippery calçada. Much of the fabric behind the facades is post-1988 reconstruction.

Nearby

Carmo convent and the Santa Justa lift are above; the Baixa is below.

Key facts