The Elevador de Santa Justa

The Elevador de Santa Justa is a strange and wonderful thing. It is, as you probably guessed, an elevator. But it is technically part of the city's mass transit system, operated by Carris. As I've written, Lisbon is a city built haphazardly on top of hills, which can present a transportation and circulation problem. The Elevador was opened in 1902 as a potential solution to this problem. It is designed to move people up from the Baixa to the Bairro Alto. It is simply a large, external elevator - but the group that planned the elevator had grandiose ideas, and the man who eventually designed and built it was a protege of Gustave Eiffel (you may heard of his famous Tower). Consequently, it stands out as more than a simple curiosity of urban planning. It is rather beautiul, kind of darkly gothic in its wrought-iron design. These days, of course, no one actually rides it just to get up and down. It is purely a tourist draw. But so what? It's still pretty cool. Liz & I visited on Christmas Day when visitors would be at a minimum, and these are some pictures. (I cheated - one of the pictures is from a different day... can you tell which one?)

Here is the whole thing from its base, on Rua Santa Justa, naturally.

Here is the detail of the upper platform.

The shaft. You can see the elevator cars going up inside. Glass! (You won't get me in there, that's for sure)

Here's a side view of the top platform. You can see it actually has three levels. The top level is simply a viewing platform. In the middle (the glassed off area) is a cafe. And below that is where the elevators stop to let people out. The only way up and down between those levels is an old, rickety, spiral staircase. I don't think this thing would pass code these days...
You can also see the bridge that connects the platform to the top of the ridge (the Bairro Alto)

Here are some pictures from the top. First of all, this is from the beinning of the bridge/walkway out to the top of the Elevador. There is a fee to actually use the elevator itself, but to just walk out to the platform and enjoy the view is free. Anyway, the walkway runs along right next to an old convent, the Convento do Carmo. It was destroyed in the earthquake of 1755, and for some reason, the ruins have been preserved, I guess as a memorial of sorts to the destruction of the earthquake. Anyway, that's it to the left. The walls and arches still stand, but everything else collapsed.

This is the view looking back towards the convent from the elevator platform.

Remember those spiral staircases I was talking about? You can see it here. (Hey, it's me!)

Yeah, no way I'm going up there!

Now, what about the view from the top viewing platform? Well, unfortunately, I have a mild phobia of heights, and while I was ok for a little bit on the lowest platform (in which you are caged in), I wasn't about to go up to the open-air top platform. So I sent my wife up there instead. (j/k - she wanted to go up there). The view is actually pretty similar to the view from the Miradouro Sao Pedro which I posted recently. It's not that far from there. So, here's three pictures to give you the overview, starting from northeast, to east, to southeast.