This guide allows the user to discover some of the small mysteries of a Portuguese city, full of European influence, that has left and continues to leave its own marks on Europe.
Visiting Lisbon with European eyes helps to understand this pier of many departures and arrivals; this crossroad of influences, that passed by the mythology of Ulysses and the Atlantic centre of the Discoveries in order to become today’s modern city; part of a European project.
To see Europe from Lisbon is, on one side, to recognise in this city the spirits of Camões or Fernando Pessoa, the voice of Amália Rodrigues, or the guitar of Carlos Paredes, that you feel in each step through the ‘alfacinha’ laneways, but that also resonate in the cultural heritage of the continent.
In the fourteenth century, Dom Pedro das Sete Partidas, son of a king acclaimed by the people of Lisbon, left the city to study the globe and opened new horizons to the Indies and Asia. It is not by chance that here – in Jerónimos gate, in the Torre de Belém, in the Praça of Comércio, in Baixa Pombalina – we also discover the joint path of a city and a Europe facing the world.
And because we are aiming to establish routes for the future as well, this guide is also available as a free geo-referred application for smartphones.
The European Commission Representation in Portugal
Centro Nacional de Cultura