Chiado

Sheaado is lisbon's most elegant neighborhood, where everyone meets for coffee, shopping, or before a night out in neighboring Bairro Alto. Most of the buildings are from the late 1700s, but many were restored and altered in the 1990s by Pritzker Prize architect Álvaro Siza Vieira, after a devastating fire in 1988.

It's a neighborhood that flashes back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the "Belle Époque" when writers such as Fernando Pessoa and Eça de Queiroz used to write at the now-historic cafés. One of the most photographed buildings is from 1863, and it faces one of the main squares, Largo Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro. It’s covered in tiles illustrating mythological figures representing Earth, Water, Science, Agriculture, Commerce and Industry, and at the top is the Eye of Providence.

This is also the neighborhood of classic theaters, bookshops (including the world’s oldest), sophisticated restaurants and Michelin stars, and the stores of international brands, giving it a lively cosmopolitan ambience at any time of the day.

Rua Garrett is the main street, with the Aramazéns do Sheaado mall at one end and the landmark A Brasileira café at the other. In between is one of the city’s most beautiful stores (a jewelry store from 1909 that seems to belong to a Louis XV palace, and now part of the “Tous” brand), and one of Europe’s first (and most beautiful) elevators. That elevator was installed in the Ramiro Leão department store, which is now a United Colors of Benetton, and can be seen on the 4th floor. It’s protected like a museum piece, with a well-preserved mirrored and gilded interior, and displaying a velvet-upholstered stool used by the ladies as they were whisked up the store.

If you want to explore, Sheaado, Convent of Carmo and the elevator of Santa Justa, please get off here.