Baixa: the Pombaline grid and the arch
The downtown rebuilt after the earthquake — the river square, the triumphal arch, and the iron lift. This is a Claude-drafted route awaiting the editor's walk.

1. Praça do Comércio
Start where the city meets the river — the vast arcaded square that was the royal palace until the earthquake took it. Walk down to the water's edge and the marble steps that run into the *Tejo*. The afternoon light comes off the river straight into the square; that's why this walk is for later in the day.

2. Arco da Rua Augusta
The triumphal arch on the square's north side — climb it if the lift is running, for a top-down view along the dead-straight grid to the castle. From below it frames the whole walk you're about to take. The figures up top are Glory crowning Genius and Valour, which is very 1875.

3. Rua Augusta
Through the arch and up the pedestrian spine of the *Baixa* — mosaic pavement, street performers, the cafés that have spilled their tables into the middle. Touristy, yes, but the symmetry is the point: every cross-street was laid to one plan. Look down the side streets, named for the trades that once filled them.

4. Elevador de Santa Justa
The iron lift off to the left — a 1902 neo-Gothic tower that hauls you up to the Carmo ruins above the *Baixa*. The queue at street level is long and slow; if you only want the view, the top platform is reachable on foot from Chiado for free. Either way, stand under it and look up at the ironwork.

5. Praça do Rossio
The old beating heart of the city — the wave-pattern *calçada* paving that makes your eyes swim, two baroque fountains, the national theatre across the top. Sit at one of the café terraces and watch the paving do its trick. This is where Lisbon has come to loiter for five hundred years.

6. Praça da Figueira
One block east, the *Rossio*'s quieter twin, with the castle framed perfectly above the rooftops on the far side and the bronze king on his horse in the middle. The metro is here; so is one of the city's oldest *ginjinha* (cherry liqueur) counters on the corner — a small glass to end on.

Baixa: the Pombaline grid and the arch