Hello, Lisbon.
Another day in the largest city and beautiful capital of Portugal.
And today, I'm going to show you an area called Baixa.
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Lisbon is one of the oldest cities in the world,
almost 3,000 years old.
It is actually the second oldest capital in Europe,
only after Athens.
Centuries older than Paris, London, Rome.
But this has not always been like this
There was a disaster that changed everything here.
Let me start by introducing this place here where I am.
This is Commerce Square, Praça do Comércio.
And until the 18th century, this is where the Royal Palace was.
Portugal was a monarchy,
and the royal family used to live right here.
Now, remember this year that I'm going to mention
because I'm going to refer to it several times in this series of videos.
1755
There was a huge earthquake here that lasted for several minutes.
It destroyed 85% of Lisbon.
That's because it was not only an earthquake
This is a Catholic country.
People were in church and they had candles lit at home.
As a consequence, there was a huge fire.
To make things worse,
those that managed to escape came here to the lower area,
and then the tsunami hit.
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Once I came here on a guided tour,
and the guide explains that this sculpture
doesn't mean that the king is greeting or welcoming people to Lisbon.
It actually represents the king departing,
the king leaving the city.
-Double whammy.
-This is what happened after the earthquake.
Not even the king wanted to stay here,
and he left.
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But then, what?
Because Lisbon needed to survive, right?
That's when a very important political figure came to light.
the Marquis of Pombal.
Remember him from the previous video?
He was the State Secretary at the time
and he created a plan to revitalize all this.
So, all this that you see here is from the 18th century.
The Marquis created the same look and feel here
for the entire historic district
with buildings that are very similar in terms of architecture,
their windows, the shape of the windows,
balcony on the first floor,
one building per block,
wider avenues,
square blocks,
things you normally don't see in a historical European center.
But most importantly, everything earthquake proof.
And to fully complete the revitalization,
the triumphal arch.
It's a symbol of Lisbon's strengths and achievements,
also the resilience following the disaster.
You can actually go up there.
-Two stories high. Be careful
-[laughs]
-The air [in Portuguese] up there is very thin
-[laughs]
Two stories high.
What?
Before getting to the top, there's an explanation here
about how the arch was created.
And it says that the commerce square
was planned to become the city's grand entrance.
And the arch was just inaugurated in 1873.
There was an existing portico
and the arch was just put on top.
-Oh, geez. I'm getting dizzy.
-[laughs]
-Oh, I'm gonna fall.
Wow! It's much bigger than it seems.
For 3 euros, you can come up here and have a 360 view of downtown.
Look at this.
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Wow!
Look at how beautiful this view.
This is Rua Augusta, Augusta Street,
the main street here in Baixa.
And here you can actually have a better understanding
of the square blocks,
how everything is so square.
From here, you can already see the elevator over there
that I showed yesterday
connecting the lower part to the upper part.
Santa Justa lift
We're gonna go there, see how big the line is.
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Not very high, but as we're in the lower city, right?
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The main symbol of rebirth of the city.
Now, we're gonna walk all this
going inside a few places here and there.
Now that we've seen everything, what's your favorite view?
-The river.
-Right here?
Oh, me too, but I prefer here because you can see the square.
-No, the bridge. -You like with the bridge?
-The San Francisco Gate Bridge.
-That's not San Francisco Gate. That's not Golden Gate Bridge.
It looks like but... -The Golden Gate.
-Looks like.
And actually the Golden Gate Bridge came first.
This was inspired by Golden Gate Bridge.
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We just came down here, and look at how wonderful,
wine tasting going on.
Wines of Portugal.
Perfect time to try the famous green wine.
You know the green wine is not green, right?
[laughs]
-It's green. -It's not green.
-The green wine is normally light.
Like the white, but it's not produce here in Lisbon.
It's from the northern region, like Porto and beyond.
-Ah, I got it.
Are these wine from the Lisbon area?
-Yes, yes, all from Lisbon
-Why you chose this one?
-Because it's a Portuguese grape. -Yes.
-I asked which one he suggests, he said this.
-Very good. -Yeah
-Very light, fruity
-I like, very, very good.
Very good.
Let me try this one. So light, this one?
Wow, this is really good. So amazing.
Any wine here if you want to try, €0.50.
€8 or €7 if you wanted to buy the bottle right here.
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And there is the famous Tram 28.
Jam-packed with tourists.
This Augusta Street is very touristy.
Full of tourists.
Lots of shops, a lot of things going on.
There are restaurants, too.
-Obrigada, obrigada. [thank you in Portuguese]
Here you can also see what I mentioned earlier
about the architecture.
Look at the buildings, all very symmetric, square.
Looking very similar.
-Oh! -Breakfast?
-Oh, my gosh, look at this.
-Six for €5,50
-Yeah, it's a really good deal.
If there's any soccer fan, Benfica store right here.
Oh, wow! This ice cream is like a flower.
Gelato burger, too.
Look at this!
The secret is how they take the ice cream.
They create a flower with it.
Look at this! With an ice cream macaroon on top.
Oh, my God!
You can choose as many flavors as you want.
It's like petal by petal,
and they create a flower.
I chose exotic fruits,
raspberry, cheesecake,
blueberry cheesecake,
and caramel.
This is so good.
And talking about football, here's Sporting, too.
Here is the elevator,
Santa Justa elevator.
Let's see how busy it is.
This elevator here is very well-known as it was created in 1902
by a student of the famous Gustave Eiffel.
Eiffel, as you may recognize the name,
created the Eiffel Tower
or 'Eiffel Tower' in English.
At the time, beginning of the 20th century,
this solved a real problem here in Lisbon.
How do you go up, right?
But today is mainly a tourist attraction.
Want to say hello? -To Brazil!
-To Brazil, yeah! -To Flamengo.
-Fan of Flamengo. -What Flamengo? Botafogo (football).
-Botafogo or Corinthians, too. -Botafogo!
-Are you a Botafogo fan? -I'm a Botafogo fan.
-Such a beautiful girl alone?
-No, no, my husband is back there.
-Ok
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Seriously, it's gonna take these people one or two hours to go up.
if you haven't seen my previous video,
here's the tip: go up there by metro.
Once my husband and I did a test here:
I came down my elevator,
and he came walking normally.
Only 20 people can come up,
15 go down.
That's why it takes a while.
There were 15 or 16 people ahead of me up there.
He not only arrived first, but waited 20 minutes for me.
People normally associate Portugal with tiles,
but the Portuguese pavement, look at this,
is also very well known.
At the end of Rua Augusta,
you arrive here at the largest square in Lisbon,
this is Rossio square.
And if you've ever been to Rio de Janeiro...
Of course, Lisbon did not copy Rio de Janeiro,
Rio copied Lisbon.
This was the inspiration.
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The waves here represent when the Tejo River meets the ocean.
This pattern here has inspired designs all over the world,
including in my home country.
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Okay, let's go back to the other side of Baixa
because I'm getting hungry.
Lots of nice restaurants around here,
but there's one place I want to visit.
On our way to our last stop of the day,
we walk through a street that is in every guidebook
and blog post about Lisbon,
in the things to do
The pink street. Why?
Because it's pink.
Look at this, totally pink.
This was the former red-light district.
During the day, there's not much here.
There are some bars, there are people here hanging out.
This area actually comes to life at night.
People normally go out at different parts of the city,
like Bairro Alto,
and when those places shut down at 2 or 3 in the morning,
depending on the day of the week, they all come here.
Here nightlife goes until daytime.
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Let's close the day at a food market.
This is Ribeira Market.
Here there's the TimeOut Market and the Tradicional Market.
Tradicional first.
It's just a farmers' market.
No, let's go back to the other.
We want to eat.
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Oh, this is really cool.
-Burgers, fish burger [in Portuguese] -Yeah.
-Salmon [in Portuguese]
All kinds of food here, not only Portuguese,
but we'll go for Portuguese.
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So, here is the idea.
Various restaurants, famous in Portugal.
They're all over.
And then at the center, huge tables that you share with everyone.
So crazy the amount of people here!
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So, these are the two flavored ones they're for you.
All my three are the traditional ones.
Cod fish cake, specialty in Portugal, right?
-This is different. -Is it red pepper?
-Red pepper? I don't know. Bell pepper. Yeah?
Which one is your favorite?
-They're all good. -[laughs]
He had olive, bell pepper and the traditional.
Next, sardines.
Sardines are very traditional here in Portugal, too.
Here, sardines with tomato on a bread.
I've never had sardines like this, not even in Brazil.
This is really good
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Dessert! Almond pie, it's very traditional, Portuguese
It's like a pecan pie,
and also brigadeiro, chocolate sweet,
my all-time favorite sweet.
Mmm.
It's a dream come true.
Crunchy! Love it, love it, love it!
A lot of tourists here.
Prices are slightly above average.
And you find some more expensive and sophisticated dishes as well.
But the food is really, really good.
So, I'm glad we came.
-Can you give me some room to work?
-[laughs]
I like to stay near you.
Because it was created by a student
of the famous Eiffel Tower.
No, not the Eiffel Tower.
Look at this river beach, downtown Lisbon
Right in front of the main square.
-Yeah, I got it.
-Do you have it on camera? -Yes, I do, baby.
-I run out of battery. -That's okay, baby.
[laughs]