Praça Dom Pedro IV

Few places sum up Lisbon’s public life as well as Praça Dom Pedro IV, which everyone still calls Rossio. For centuries it was a market, a stage for festivities, conspiracies and everyday encounters; after the earthquake of 1755, it took on the ordered shape that still structures the Baixa today. At its centre rises, since 1870, the column of D. Pedro IV holding the Constitutional Charter, as if the whole square were also a civic theatre. It is worth looking down at the pavement: the undulating pattern of the calçada, the “wide sea” of light and dark stone, has become one of Lisbon’s most recognisable images. There is also an almost invisible detail that makes the place even more fascinating: beneath Rossio, remains of the Roman circus of Olisipo have been identified. Between the murmur of cafés, the façade of the National Theatre and the flow of passers-by, this square remains an urban heart where Lisbon appears both ancient and vividly alive.