Avenida da Liberdade

This very place was once a forbidden garden where ordinary people were barred by towering walls and locked gates. The grand boulevard stretching from Praça dos Restauradores to Praça Marquês de Pombal began as the Passeio Público, an exclusive park created in 1764 by architect Reinaldo Manuel for Portuguese nobility alone. Behind those walls, aristocrats strolled past waterfalls and ornate statues representing the Tagus and Douro rivers while everyone else could only peer through the gates.

That changed in 1821 when King João VI ordered the walls torn down, finally opening the gardens to all citizens regardless of class. The most dramatic transformation came between 1879 and 1886. Engineer Ressano Garcia demolished the entire park to create a sweeping 90 meter wide boulevard modeled after the Champs Elysées in Paris, connecting the city center to its northern expansion.

The avenue became the 35th most expensive in the world. Monuments honoring Portuguese writers like Almeida Garrett and Alexandre Herculano line the pedestrian areas, alongside the striking 1931 memorial to soldiers who fell in World War I.