We're going to visit the fantastic Castle of St. George up on top of the hill overlooking
Lisbon, Portugal.
These extensive and well-preserved ruins are considered to be the oldest monument in Lisbon.
The Castle is right in the city on top of the hill next to Alfama, the city's oldest
residential district, and overlooking downtown Lisbon.
It's quite easy to get here.
You can either arrive by bus or tram or taxi or like in our case were walking.
It's a very pleasant walk, the hill is not too steep, and it's taking us through part
of the Alfama.
Back in the Middle Ages, say in the 12th century, the Castle and Alfama were the entire extent
of Lisbon, and still today they retain that historic character.
Since the castle is quite high above the city you get some dramatic views looking into downtown
Lisbon and out to the waterfront and the hills beyond.
And we will show you more of those views in a little bit after we inside and tour the
castle.
The Castle can be thoroughly enjoyed from the outside, but it's really worth paying
the admission charge to go inside and find out what's there.
You'll discover that it's much more than an empty shell surrounded by walls.
There's a lot stairs and passageways and rooms and turrets and viewpoints to experience.
There's even a small museum you can visit and look at the artifacts from the ancient
days.
St. George’s Castle is a romantic ruin with ancient stone walls and ramparts overlooking
the city and with lush landscaping that has transformed this fortress into one of the
nicest parks in town, making this a favorite place for locals and visitors to relax.
While the castle is mostly gardens today, in ancient times this was the crowded walled
city where most of the people lived and would have been packed in with buildings that are
now gone.
In those medieval days it was too dangerous to live outside the protection of the walls,
so there was probably little or no settlement throughout what is the built-up areas of today’s
Lisbon.
And the royal palace was also here, although little trace of it remains today.
Much of the castle was destroyed in the great earthquake of 1755, and the grounds were later
cleared to form this beautiful park.
You will notice that these castle walls surround empty courtyards, so don’t expect much in
the way of fascinating castle interiors when you come up to visit St. George, but do expect
to be pleasantly surprised at how interesting these ruins can be.
You have a chance to walk around the perimeter on the outside of the walls, and then you
can walk inside up the stone staircases and walk along the tops of the walls on the parapets
getting fantastic panoramic views looking out in all directions around from the top
of this commanding hill.
You’ll have a great look into the heart of downtown Lisbon and all the way down to
the center to the commercial square and out to the waterfront.
If you'd like to get a snack before continuing your explorations of the castle you've got
a couple of choices.
There is this lovely outdoor terrace café that's the Castle Café, or you can have a
more elegant drink overlooking the city at the House of the Llon restaurant, a little
bit more expensive but a fantastic location.
Then you'll ready to climb some staircases.
For these short people the big steps can be a real challenge to get up and then later
on to get down the steps but it's worth it for them.
Young people exploring a castle, what to be more fun than that?
It can be really quite amusing to observe the local school kids on their outings, and
if you spend any time in Lisbon you will run into groups of the local elementary school
kids wearing their colorful outfits and walking along with their teachers and instructors,
and having a grand time.
The teachers did a great job of organizing this little parade and they were pretty well-behaved
[kids yell] – a little bit of tussling back and forth is naturally to be expected with
the kids.
And they were seeing the whole thing.
They had time in the central courtyard, and just play around, and they were exploring
and walking, and seeing even the back corners of the castle where there are some archaeological
digs going on.
In fact many of the adult visitors are not nearly as adventurous, not getting to see
the interesting earlier remains of the ancient part of the castle.
You might be lucky and find some musical entertainment while you're enjoying the castle.
This was a classic Portuguese guitar playing in the background that really enhanced the
atmosphere of the visit on this particular day.
You have a chance to purchase a CD while you are at it.
You don't want to leave the castle without visiting the museum, which provides an introduction
to various cultures and lifestyles that date all the way back to the seventh century BC,
with early traces of the Phoenicians, right up through the 18th century, and includes
the room where they say Vasco da Gama met with King Manuel.
Of course da Gama was the Portuguese explorer who first discovered the sea route to India
in 1498.
The oldest visible castle walls were built by the Arabs in the 8th century, but the site’s
origins go back well before that time to the ancient 5th century Visigoth invaders, and
before them, the Romans who built the first fort here.
In the year 711 the Arabs crossed the Straights of Gibraltar in a surprise attack and within
a few years had conquered nearly all of what is now Spain and Portugal.
Lisbon was in the hands of the Arabs up until 1147 when it was seized by Portugal’s first
king, Alfonso, who evicted the Muslims from the country with help from the Crusaders of
England and France.
King Manuel was the first monarch to move away from the fortress in the early 16th century,
when the society became strong enough to be freed from these walled confines, and the
city began to grow tremendously with the new wealth brought in from the expanding colonies.
So after enjoying a stroll through the grounds of the castle, exit through one of the gates
in the wall.
Here you will enter what is probably the very oldest living quarters of the city, first
occupied over 1000 years ago, and with traces of prehistoric settlement back to 600 BC.
The neighborhood is called Santa Cruz do Costello and it's a very special spot because it's
tucked up right outside the castle walls, a little different than Alfama, which is adjacent,
and you'll easily walk from one neighborhood to the next within five or 10 minutes.
But be sure to spend a little time walking around in these narrow lanes.
This Castelo district is only a couple of square blocks, so it's very easy to walk in
along one narrow residential pedestrian lane, and enjoy these ancient homes and facades
and some colorful balconies, and there are a few shops scattered here and there.
But it's still mostly a residential neighborhood.
You go in for a couple blocks, there's a small square, trees, a little carpark and some rather
dilapidated buildings that might make a good fixer-upper – perhaps a good investment.
This would be a charming place to live.
And after you have a look around the square, then back out along another lane.
Also just takes a few minutes to walk along and enjoying again these really, really old
historic buildings.
You have two remember this was the residential neighborhood that is within the confines of
the castle itself, so this was a protected district back in the Middle Ages and in 14th
15th centuries when the town was always subject to attack from Pirates coming in from the
sea.
This would've been the safest place to live.
In the typical medieval fashion, you have your residences within the walls of the castle
and right next to the walls of the castle and it's still here today even though most
visitors overlook it – they exit the castle and just head right down, either back onto
their tour bus or heading back down through Alfama.
So there’s that just take this little detour – you'll enjoy it.
And this will lead you directly into Alfama, the oldest residential part of Lisbon, the
old town – a great place to explore.
We have another movie entirely devoted to a walking tour Alfama , be sure to look for
it.
Here's those kids again, done with their visit.
But we are not finished with our exploration of the castle.
Now we are going to have a look at it with our local guide Isabel.
She has a few more things to tell us about the location and the history of this great
structure.
[guide speaks] And now we are going this way please.
Okay here we are really at the top of the hill, so this is the oldest hill of Lisbon.
Lisbon the city the center of the city stands on seven different hills.
This is the highest and the oldest hill of the city.
It was here that the first the Romans first built a fortress then it was enlarged by the
Arabs, and it was conquered by the Portuguese.
The fortress with the towers where the, the soldiers were, it's a little bit further up
to the left.
The city was first conquered by the Portuguese in 1147.
The capital of the city was still another city further north.
It was only 100 years after the conquest of Lisbon when the Portuguese conquered the South
of Portugal where is now the Algarve, that the capital of Portugal was moved to Lisbon.
And it was King Manuel the first, in the 16th century, the one who built the big monastery,
that decided to build the fortress that we saw in the first day to defend the entrance
of the river.
He built two fortresses, one on each side of the river.
Once the fortresses were built there and they defend the entrance to the Lisbon Harbor,
he thought there was no need for the walls around the city anymore, because until the
16th century Lisbon was a walled city like the Arab city initially built here.
So most of the walls were destroyed to open the streets and to develop the city, so first
to the Valley here, which is now downtown.
And it was there in the Trade Square that the King decided to have his new palace in
the 16th century.
And all the wealthy families and the nobles that lived here by the Castle, they also wanted
to have their new homes built down there in the new areas of Lisbon.
This Valley here that was completely destroyed by the earthquake of 1755, so today is the
downtown area, the Baixa, from the 18th century.
Over there you can see the statue of our first king, Alphonse the First, so he was the one
who conquered the city in 1147.
And from here you have a nice view over the river estuary.
That's the narrowest part of the estuary where the bridge was built – a 2 km long bridge
in 1966.
And if you look towards that side, so the estuary is much larger.
So now we are going to walk here by the wall.
I'm going to show you the city center and then we make a small walking tour, and there
are some washrooms near the fortress.
So we will make a stop there, and if you want to buy a bottle of water or something.
We have another hill over there.
And the Valley between the two hills, the one where we are and the other one over there,
is what we call downtown Baixa, and it was built as a new city after the earthquake.
You can see the ruins of a church.
Can you see a church without roof?
That's Carmo Church that was destroyed by the earthquake and was never rebuilt.
Nowadays the church is an archaeological Museum.
Can you see the metallic tower?
So that's the lift that is a means of transport to take the people to the top of the hill
to the Chiado and Bairo Alto areas.
Now if you take a look to the right hand side, do you see the trees going uphill?
That is the Liberdade Avenue.
And when you look towards the right you're looking towards the north, the most modern
part of Lisbon, and it's there that you see the modern buildings, taller buildings, but
not really very tall.
We are in an earthquake area, we have very strict rules for construction, and so tall
buildings are not allowed in Lisbon.
And this area here was rebuilt and restored to have a restaurant, and the name of the
restaurant is Casa do Leao, meaning the Lions House, because this part of the palace was
a building where King Manuel kept a lion.
A lion was brought from Africa in the early 15th century as a gift to the King, and so
they kept the name Lions House, and they decided to have the restaurant here.
Okay, let's go this way.
Here on your left you can see what we really call the fortress.
That's where the soldiers were and the tower that had all the treasures and the archive
of the royal family, when the royal palace was here.
So it was inside this fortress.
Also the water reservoir, and they used to have water running around the walls here for
a better protection.
These walls were restored in 1940 – you can see that part of the walls, you can see
that they are comparatively modern, or new, and part of the walls are so the original
ones from the Middle Ages.
The palace was actually destroyed in the 18th century, but as the king had other palaces
down there, so, this was never rebuilt.
It was rebuilt recently and now we have a couple of rooms there where they do some temporary
exhibitions, so they just rebuilt the main walls, they did not rebuild it as it used
to be.
As we finish up our look at the castle we like to invite you to look at our other movies
about Lisbon.
We have an Alfama walking tour, we've got Bairo Alto and several other episodes about
this great capital of Portugal.
If you enjoy our programming please subscribe and share with your friends and comments are
always welcome thanks very much.
And here's one final tip for you – you can take public bus number 737 right from the
heart of downtown to the castle.
It leaves from last Placa Figueria right next to Rossio Square very convenient.
From the castle you can easily walk over to another outstanding panoramA terrace.
Rua de Santiago will take you there in just about five or 10 minutes and get a great view
of the monastery of St. Vincent.
Our guide will tell us about that saint in a moment but first we want to stop and take
some photos with this great background, and you'll find yourselves helping each other
out taking shots of strangers and getting to know some people, enjoying the view.
This was done before the selfy stick, back when people actually asked each other for
help taking a picture.
Now we rejoin our guide Isabel Neves while she tells us a little bit about the statue
of St. Vincent here on the terrace.
[guide speaks] Here we have the statue of St. Vincent.
St. Vincent is the patron saint of Lisbon, and he's always represented with a boat, a
ship, and two birds.
The birds were black crows.
So now I'm going to show you the view from that side.
You'll find this terrace is one of those places it's just hard to pull yourself away from
– the view is captivating, you can see more details every time you look.
The people are fascinating.
You might strike up some conversations, share some recent travel tips maybe.
And you'll find this neighborhood has got some charm – there is some tourist shops,
there are old buildings and the funky street with the tracks running through the middle
of it, and the old trams buzzing by.
One of the great directions you can take from this terrace is walking down the steps into
Alfama, the old historic neighborhood of Lisbon, and we will take you there in a separate movie
– look for it on our YouTube channel.
When you're all done with your visit on top of the hill and you want to head back down
into the main part of the city of Lisbon, the easiest way and most fun way is to hop
one of these old historic trams – they come by very frequently.
The trams of Lisbon are one of the quaint phenomenon of the city.
The tram called the “electrico” is so popular that it can get very crowded, so it's
a good idea to get there early or sometimes hop on and going in the other direction then
turn around later.
These picturesque old trams are a big part of the identity of Lisbon, something like
the cable cars of San Francisco, and they have been running on their extensive routes
for 100 years providing a real service to visitors and local commuters.
We have many more movies about Lisbon which you can see on our YouTube channel.