Lisbon's iconic Santa Justa Lift

Also near Rossio Square (in the previous post) is the famous Elevador de Santa Justa (Santa Justa Lift). It links the lower part of Lisbon center to a much higher neighbourhood.

so many people...

At the top of the lift, there is a path that goes to the back. There will be a clearer view of it in another photo.

photo together at this iconic landmark

view from further away (the streets are criss-crossing, and we are looking down a side road here)

The lift was not operating (together with all the other funiculars) because of a horrific accident on the Gloria funicular not very long before our visit. I had initially planned to ride some of the funiculars, for the experience, and maybe to save some walking, but that was no longer possible. But after taking the tram (wait for another post), I think it was just as well that the funiculars were not available. :P

Here I will skip forward to two days later when we visited the area at the top of the lift.

see the lift on the right?

stairs to go down...

I did not walk down to that corner because it looked too scary...

And here is the castle (Castelo de São Jorge) seen from afar (it is actually in the two photos above too, but really small :P ). We didn’t go to the castle, because it was rather far off and on a hill. We also were not interested in entering it…

We had seen the castle from Praça da Figueira too (one of the squares in the previous post), but since it was from lower down, it didn’t look as nice.

Then we climbed up some stairs to where the lift door is. 

"out of service" notice

looking down...

There was a platform there, which I guess is for waiting for the lift, but it was a good place to take photos of the view.

the view

zoom in at the castle

Rossio Square

wider view that includes the garden thingy in the earlier photo (the photo with the lift on the right)

On the platform, there was a shop selling codfish cakes, called Casa Portuguesa do Pastel de Bacalhau. Codfish cakes are normally a simple dish, but this shop is really classy (and expensive); the codfish cakes even have stickers (brand names? haha) on them. We had seen this shop in Porto as well. I didn't take a photo of the shop, but I took photos of the codfish paste and codfish cakes through the window.

I think this is just for display

I'm not sure, but I guess this is for sale?

Outside the lift, there is a small square with a fountain called Chafariz do Carmo (the neighbourhood is called Carmo).

The way to the lift is on the right, beside the red building. The white building is the Carmo Archaeological Museum; I don't find it that special. :P

Since this square was not close to any metro station, we took a Bolt car back to the hotel from here.