Hill to Hill: A Day on Foot from Alfama to Príncipe Real

Lisbon is a city of hills with a flat valley between them. On the eastern hill lies Alfama, the old quarter that the earthquake of 1755 did not destroy. On the western hill stand Chiado and Bairro Alto, the upper town of churches, theatres and cafés. Between them runs the Baixa, rebuilt on a grid after the disaster.

This day on foot crosses from one hill to the other. It begins high above Alfama at two great domes and towers, drops through the old quarter's lanes to a tiled viewpoint, crosses the valley at the church where Lisbon's favourite saint was born, and climbs to a Gothic ruin, a Jesuit church and two gardens on the far ridge. By the end you look back across the city to where you started.

Expect climbs and stairs on both hills, and plan for long stops: four of the ten places are worth going inside. If you have only a few hours, our shorter walk from Rossio to the castle covers the Baixa and the castle hill, which this day passes by.

Start at the white dome that rises over the eastern end of Alfama. The National Pantheon was built as the Church of Santa Engrácia. Work on the present building began in 1681 to a design by João Antunes, but after his death in 1712 King John V turned his money to the convent at Mafra, and the church stood unfinished for centuries. The dome was added only in the 20th century, and the building was inaugurated in 1966. The Portuguese still say "obras de Santa Engrácia" for a job that never ends.

The church became the National Pantheon in 1916, under the First Republic. Presidents and writers lie here, along with the fado singer Amália Rodrigues and the footballer Eusébio, and there are cenotaphs to Camões, Vasco da Gama and Henry the Navigator. Inside, the plan is a Greek cross under the dome; above, a terrace looks out over Alfama's rooftops and the Tagus.

A few minutes west stands the long façade of São Vicente de Fora, "Saint Vincent outside the walls", named for Lisbon's patron saint and for its place beyond the old city walls. Afonso Henriques, the first king of Portugal, founded a monastery here around 1147. The present church was built from 1582 to 1629 on the orders of Philip II of Spain, who had just become king of Portugal too.

The monastery is a museum of tiles. More than 150 azulejo panels from the first half of the 18th century line its walls, and in the cloisters they illustrate La Fontaine's fables. In the old refectory lie the kings of the House of Braganza, moved here in the 19th century, and the roof terrace looks over the river.

From São Vicente, let the streets take you downhill into Alfama. Its name probably comes from the Arabic al-hamma, the hot springs, and under Moorish rule this slope between the castle and the river was the whole city. The earthquake of 1755 did not destroy it, so Alfama kept what the Baixa lost: a maze of narrow lanes, stairways and small squares.

There is no fixed route here, and that is the point. Many of the restaurants in the quarter offer fado in the evening, if you want to come back after the walk.

Climb out of the lanes to Miradouro de Santa Luzia, a terrace beside the small church of Santa Luzia with a view over Alfama's roofs, the domes you started from and the Tagus.

Look at the church wall as well as the view. Two tile panels by António Quaresma, made at the Viúva Lamego factory, show Lisbon before 1755: one the riverside square of Terreiro do Paço, now Comércio Square, the other the crusaders' siege of the castle in 1147, the year that also gave the city its cathedral and São Vicente.

Follow the road down past Lisbon Cathedral, the Sé, to a smaller church across the street. The Church of Saint Anthony stands on the site of the house where Saint Anthony, known to the world as Anthony of Padua, was born. He is Lisbon's own saint.

The earthquake of 1755 badly damaged the old church, and the present building was raised in its place in the later 18th century. Below it, a small crypt marks the spot where the saint is said to have been born.

Cross the flat streets of the Baixa and climb the western slope to Largo do Carmo. Its north side is filled by the Carmo Convent, founded in 1389 by the Constable Nuno Álvares Pereira. The earthquake of 1755 brought down the stone roof of its Gothic church, and it was never rebuilt: today the pointed arches of the nave stand open to the sky.

In 1864 the ruin was given to the Association of Portuguese Archaeologists, who turned it into the Carmo Archaeological Museum. The square has a more recent place in history too: on 25 April 1974, during the Carnation Revolution, the prime minister Marcelo Caetano took refuge in the National Republican Guard headquarters here, surrounded by the soldiers of the Armed Forces Movement, before giving up power.

A few steps south, Chiado is the elegant heart of the upper town, a district of old cafés, bookshops and theatres along Rua Garrett. The café A Brasileira was a haunt of the poet Fernando Pessoa, and a bronze statue of him now sits outside. Nearby, the 16th-century poet António Ribeiro, nicknamed "Chiado", has had his own statue on the square since 1925.

The district you see is partly a rebuild. On 25 August 1988 a fire that began in the Grandella department store destroyed or damaged eighteen buildings. The architect Álvaro Siza Vieira led the reconstruction, keeping the old façades and rebuilding the interiors behind them.

Climb north to the plain stone front of the Church of São Roque. Do not judge it by the outside. It began in 1506 as a shrine for a relic of Saint Roch, and in 1553 it passed to the Jesuits, for whom it was their first church in the Portuguese world. It was one of the few buildings in Lisbon to come through the earthquake of 1755 with little damage, and since 1768 it has belonged to the Santa Casa da Misericórdia.

Look up at the painted wooden ceiling of the nave, mostly painted between 1584 and 1586 to look like a vault. Then find the Chapel of Saint John the Baptist, designed by Nicola Salvi and Luigi Vanvitelli for King John V. It was built in Rome, taken apart, shipped to Lisbon in 1747 and put back together here; in its day it was said to be the most expensive chapel in Europe.

Just up the street, the garden of São Pedro de Alcântara opens out on two terraces on the edge of Bairro Alto. The upper terrace is shaded by trees.

This is where the day comes together. Across the valley you see the castle hill, the towers of the cathedral and Alfama falling towards the Tagus, the hill you walked down this morning.

End the day further along the ridge in the Jardim do Príncipe Real, a garden on the ridge north of Bairro Alto. Its best-known tree is a huge old cypress, locally called a Buçaco cedar, whose branches are trained over a wide frame to make a living parasol.

Under the garden lies the Patriarcal reservoir, built in 1864 and fed by the Águas Livres aqueduct, now part of the city's Water Museum. Sit under the trees for a while: the shops and cafés around the square make a good place to finish.

In one day you have crossed Lisbon from hill to hill and through most of its history: the Moorish lanes of Alfama and the monasteries of the first kings, the Baixa rebuilt after 1755, the Gothic ruin the earthquake left behind, the Jesuits' church that survived it and a quarter rebuilt after a fire in 1988. From the gardens of the western ridge, the morning's hill is in view across the valley, and the city makes sense as a whole.