Lisbon Aqueduct

Lisbon’s Aqueduct: A Walk Across History

(An aqueduct is a system that collects and transports water using gravity.)

The Aqueduto das Águas Livres is one of Lisbon’s more distinctive landmarks. It was built between 1731 and 1749 to provide the city with clean drinking water.

This thing is 36 miles long and includes 109 stone arches (the tallest one being 213 feet high).

What is amazing is that it survived the earthquake of 1755 without any significant damage!

Today, you can walk across a section of the aqueduct of about 1 km over 35 arches, though you may not want to look over the edge. - it's a long ways down!

 

You get to see the views from both sides, since it has two paths that connect in the middle. And down below you get to see these very picturesque small neighborhoods, really very different from the rest of the city. There is also a great view over the Alcantara valley, with Lisbon on one side and Monsanto forest and the “25 de Abril” bridge and the Christos on the other. 

(That's Kay and me walking the aqueduct.)

This is where the water went through.

And these are different views of the aqueduct around the city.

Ahh, but there is a dark side to the Aquas Livres Aqueduct – are you ready for this!?

A Spanish man named Diogo Alves who lived in Lisbon committed many terrible crimes between 1836 to 1839 before being arrested and sentenced to death.

In the past, the Aqueduct also served as a bridge from one side of the Alcântara Valley to the other. (Umm, I wonder if that’s why the park end is locked!) Anyway, Diogo managed to get hold of a key to the Aqueduct and would lie in wait for his victims. He would rob them and then hurl their bodies off the top of the Aqueduct to The Valley below.

For a while, the police believed it was just a lot of suicides, but after 76 victims in the summer of 1837, they began to get a little suspicious! In 1841, he was condemned to death, and his head removed as scientists wanted to study his brain to understand how this man was so evil. His head remains in a glass jar in the University of Lisbon’s Faculty of Medicine. (I guess that could be a field trip for another day.)