#194 - Camões Square Tram

Camões Square: Lisbon's meeting place.
This small square is the transition zone between Chiado and Bairro Alto. In its center is a monumental statue of 16th century epic poet Luis de Camões standing on a pedestal with other smaller statues of classical Portuguese authors. It faces Largo do Chiado, where there are two Baroque churches: Loreto (also known as "of the Italians") and Encarnação. Here is also Lisbon's best-known café, A Brasileira, a meeting place of several generations of intellectuals and artists. In front is a statue of poet Fernando Pessoa sitting in a chair, recalling the days when he used to write at this cafe. [*]

Chiado is nowadays one of the Lisboa’s quarters with more prestige.
Situated in between the Bairro Alto and the Baixa, here the most diversified designer’s shops can be found, as well as ateliers, art galleries, museums, restaurants, modern and traditional coffees, bookstores, theatres and many other cultural and artistic expressions.
Chiado is an historical place, frequented by modernist intellectuals and has forever being linked to a cosmopolitan Lisboa, with a strong romantic, modernist, liberal, and intellectual component.
The statue of the Poet Luís of Camões, in the square with his name, the Rua Garrett (main commercial artery of the area), the famous coffees (between them the famous one "A Brasileira", in which esplanada is the bronze figure of the great Poet Fernando Pessoa sat down in one of its preferred places of the city - in fact he was born in this quarter, nearby this coffee), the theatres of the Trindade, of São Luiz and of São Carlos (the only Opera theatre in Portugal), the Carmo Convent, the Santa Justa Elevator, the Palace Valadares (in the place where the first Portuguese university was created), the National Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Churches of Loreto, of Nossa Senhora da Encarnação, and of Ordem Terceira de Nossa Senhora do Carmo, are some of the many more important monuments and symbols of Lisboa that the Chiado proudly houses.
In 1988 a serious fire of high dimensions devastated the Chiado, and since that fateful date this quarter has suffered several restoraion and re-organization works. These works have improved this historical and already so special place, with new and re-done infrastructures and facilities more accurate to the modern times, with its project directed by the respected Portuguese Architect Siza Vieira. [*]

Sights Nearby São Roque Church - Home of the world's most expensive chapel.

Miradouro de São Pedro de Alcântara - A garden with a panoramic view over the city.

Chiado Museum - Museum of Portuguese contemporary art.

São Carlos Theater - The city's La Scala-inspired opera house.

Carmo Church - Romantic Gothic ruins evocative of the Great Earthquake. Principe Real - Charming leafy square.

Miradouro de Santa Catarina - A terrace and café with a view.

Botanical Garden - An enchanting botanical garden.